Traditional horse drawn wagons

[Supertrooper]

Just passed a group of horse drawn wagons coming off Fosse Way. All being pulled by cobs.

My husband said surely they can’t get very far each day if they are only walking. Each horse or pair had someone walking alongside.

I’m not sure if they were just moving them to a fresh verge or if moving on but it must take days and days to get anywhere?

 

[Orangehorse]

They could do about 10 miles a day.

 

[planete]

You can do up to fifteen miles a day just walking the horse but day after day ten miles is better. I have done fifteen miles a day over two weeks with horses with no outside support and it was tough. I would imagine it would be much the same with a waggon. It is amazing how much time it takes to pack everything up in the mornings and to unpack at the end of the day. Horses do fine with rest stops with good grazing and the occasional day off. It is slow but the feeling of going over the land with no outside responsibilities and just the horses' company is something special.

 

[Skib]

My daughter gave me a book called "The Bridleway" by Tiffany Francis-Baker, "How horses shaped the British Landscape" - very interesting by a rider exploring England on her own horse but tracing the steps of earlier travellers in a horse drawn age.