Shepherd's Houses

Issue Date: 31 March 2003









Over the vast distances of the Falkland Islands landscape, farming settlements were scattered far apart and houses and shelters had to be built out in the empty countryside or 'camp' for the shepherds who looked after those areas. Some of these, known as 'outside houses', were the permenant residence of the shepherd with responsibility for the area, who would stay there with his family throughout the year, usually several hours travel on horseback from their nearest neighbours. The houses would be built near good supplies of water and peat and have a range of outbuildings attached, cow sheds, stables, dog kennels and hen runs, together with corrals, paddocks and vegetable gardens. Others, known as 'shanties' were simply designed to give temporary shelter to men working on seasonal tasks, moving sheep or lamb marking and might only have a gear shed, kennels and a corral nearby.

Traditional camp buildings are normally timber-framed, with corrugated iron roofs and walls clad in iron or weather boarding. Occasionally the walls would be of local stone if a suitable supply and a stonemason were available. The characteristically small window panes are evidence of the difficulties of transport. The materials for these remote structures were landed by sea at the nearest convenient point and then dragged over the rough country by wooden horse-drawn sledges or carried by bullock carts or horses known as 'cargeros'.

In the twentieth century most of the permanently occupied houses were fitted with indoor plumbing and kitchen ranges, but the shanties remained much as they had always been, with open grates and water collected from springs or rain butts.

Gun Hill Shanty

The original shanty was built by farm owners Packe Brothers in the nineteenth century on the south shore of Christmas Harbour on West Falkland as an overnight stopping place for men driving sheep. It was a substantial timber-framed structure, clad in weather boarding and with a corrugated iron roof and central brick chimney. It had an attic floor to be used as a sleeping place with sheepskins and blankets. The shanty was taken down and rebuilt on new foundations in 1934, by Jack Johnsen, a Norwegian sailor who had been shipwrecked in the islands and Jim Clement, then employed as a young roustabout by Packes. The attic floor was removed, the walls re-clad in corrugated iron and wooden bunks, characteristic of most shanties, built as sleeping accommodation. Since the sub-division of Packe's land in 1983 Gun Hill has been part of Little Chartres Farm.

Paragon

A solid stone house with a corrugated iron roof and central brick chimney standing on the flat plains of Lafonia, East Falkland, to the west of Darwin settlement. It was built in 1896 for the Falkland Islands Company, probably by their stonemason James ('Nippy') Steel. It has a circular wooden corral, stables and dog kennels attached and is now privately owned and undergoing restoration in a traditional manner.

Dos Lomas

Originally situated at the head of the creeks at Newhaven on East Falkland, this house was built by the Falkland Islands Company in 1910. Timber-framed and clad in corrugated iron with an exterior brick chimney, the curiously narrow frontage reflected the fact that it was constructed out of half the materials for a larger building, the other half having been sent to make another shepherds dwelling at Ceritos, also in Darwin camp. Dos Lomas falls somewhere between a house and a shanty, being a modest building designed for semi-permenant habitation and lived in by single shepherds rather than by a family. In 1985 it was moved two or three miles to a more convenient spot near the lamb marking pens and the brick chimney replaced by a metal one.

Shallow Bay Old House

More substantial than most shepherd's houses, this beautiful stone building with graceful arched windows on the facade was constructed in the early 1870s by Ernest Holmestead and Robert Blake, as the headquarters of their newly established farm on West Falkland. The stone was quarried nearby and two builders were recruited from Stanley to assist with construction. In 1881 Robert Blake moved with his family to nearby Hill Cove where he developed the main farm settlement and Shallow Bay became an 'outside house'. Since the sub-division of Hill Cove in 1988, the old Shallow Bay House once again stands at the headquarters of a farm and is being gradually restored as one of the loveliest houses on West Falkland.



Technical Details

Release Date: 31st March 2003
Designer: James Peck
Printer: House of Questa Ltd
Process: Lithography
Stamp Size: 28.45 x 42.58mm
Perforation: 14 per 2cms
Watermark: C A Spiral
Values: 10p, 22p, 45p, £1.00.





Copyright: FI Philatelic Bureau Created and Maintained by: Cyberpoint Limited