Dry stone pens or enclosures for sheep are found in many upland areas, built to various patterns. Most consist of a single chamber, but others have interconnected ‘rooms’ for sorting out mixed flocks. Where the interconnecting pens are circular or rounded, they are sometimes called ‘honeycomb’ pens. These complex pens are found in areas which have a long and continuous tradition of upland grazing, such as the Carneddau range in North Wales, where over a dozen can be found. Some are well maintained and regularly used, whereas others have decayed to little more than piles of stones.
In Derbyshire and South Yorkshire the enclosures are often circular, while in Northumberland square pens are more common. In Scotland circles and ovals are found. Names also vary, from ‘fanks’ in the west Highlands to ‘beilds’ in south-eastern Scotland. In Yorkshire pens are called ‘beelds’ or ‘stells’.
Pens are often designed for use as shelter, as well as for enclosure. This circular fank, about 42′ (13m) in diameter is alongside the A708 near Grey Mare’s Tail, about 9 miles north of Moffat. The walls are built to a Galloway Dyke pattern (p141), and include three radiating arms, mainly for shelter purposes.
Other pens have additional ‘catchment’ walls splayed either side of the entrance, to ease the gathering of sheep.
Some pens found on exposed moorland were specifically constructed for stock shelter, rather than stock-handling. These were particularly widespread on the North York Moors, with many marked on Ordnance Survey maps.
Smaller pens are found on the edges of villages in parts of Derbyshire and Yorkshire. These pens, known as ‘pounds’ or ‘pinfolds’ were for the impounding of stray stock, under the charge of a ‘pinder’, who only released the animals on payment of a fine or duty.
Pens were also built as traps. In Eskdale, on the hillside above a property called Wha House, is a 10′ (3m) diameter pen, with walls 7′ (2.1m) high, which slope in towards the centre. There are no openings in the walls. This is purportedly a ‘fox beild’, which would have been used by balancing a plank over the opening, with a dead lamb or similar placed on the unsupported end. The hapless fox trying to reach the carrion would overbalance the plank and be trapped.
Pens are found in a huge variety of sizes and designs for all sorts of purposes, and make a subject of study for the historian or dry stone waller.
