IN TIMES past, cattle were guided in epic droves from the far reaches of Wales, through Oxfordshire and on to London.

As many as 400 animals formed spectacular flows half-a-mile long as they breasted the Cotswolds and spilled down into the Thames Valley.

The air must have rung to a cacophony of shouts, bellows and yapping of the drovers’ corgi dogs. Up to 12 drovers would guide a big herd on a journey that lasted three weeks.

Amazingly, when the 250-mile trip was completed, the drovers would often turn their dogs loose to find their own way home. The corgis used to get back to the Welsh hills before their owners!

When little packs of unattended dogs were seen passing through Cotswold farms and villages, locals knew the drovers were only a day or so behind them, returning by horse or cart, carrying large sums of money.

The drovers came home not only with cash but commodities. Windsor chairs are often found in Welsh cottages. These were purchased in kit form from the chair-makers of the Chiltern beechwoods. Back in Wales they would be reassembled and sold for profit.

The whole of Britain is meshed with traces of routes by which livestock was once driven to market. Known as drove roads or “green lanes” they are sometimes ancient, following upland paths like Oxfordshire’s Ridgeway, which in prehistoric times offered easier passage for herds than the marshy lowlands.

But 150 years before the coming of the railways they formed the drovers’ heyday. From about 1700 to 1850, cattle surged in huge seasonal waves from Wales to London, often ending up at Barnet where a riotous fair was held.

The drovers were a tough-minded breed and resourceful too, generally avoiding main roads to bypass the tollgates which sprung up in the 17th century. Grassy tracks were also easier on the animals’ hooves, though the metal clips were often needed to “shoe” cattle for the long journey.

Ponies, pigs, turkeys and geese travelled in droves - the geese being driven through tar and sand to prepare their webbed feet for the ordeal ahead.

But sheep and cattle were the mainstay of the long-distance trade. Why drive huge herds over such long distances? The answer lies in the meagre soil of the Welsh hills, where it took several acres to support a single sheep or cow.

The small black Welsh cattle were known as “runts” because of their poor nourishment. Before herds were ready for market, they had to be fattened in English pastures.

Lush Oxfordshire lay in the path of many Welsh droves heading for London. But they avoided Oxford itself because of its costly tolls and more general nuisances – in 1831 a drover named Thomas Faulkner was convicted for driving his cattle on the footpath in St Giles.

So, one route from Pembrokeshire skirted Oxford, running from Burford, via Witney, to Thame or Abingdon. One from Aberystwyth went from Chipping Norton, via Bicester, to Aylesbury.

Exceptionally wide trackways are one of the ways by which old drove roads can be identified. The sheep and cattle had to feed as they travelled, so drove roads were more than 60ft wide to provide plenty of pasturage. The green lanes often bypassed villages, the drovers avoiding contact with local herds fearful of disease.

Likewise, inns favoured by drovers tended to stand alone, sometimes at crossroads. Drovers would often plant quick-growing Scots pines to landmark their route, or indicate a friendly hostelry. Street names such as Droveside at Cholsey – hint at their former purpose.

Other evidence of droving includes the place name Coldharbour, which was an empty shelter for wayfarers with or without livestock. This boasted no landlord, warming fire or foaming tankards, just a roof for protection against bad weather. The name was widespread in Oxfordshire.

Not all of the long droves were destined for London. By following the ancient Ridgeway, the herdsmen had a toll-free passage into Wiltshire, and on to the great fairs of Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire.

Reconstructing the maze of British drove roads is very much a work-in-progress for social historians. Enthusiast Bruce Smith runs a website devoted to local drove roads.

He told me: “My interest was sparked 25 years ago by a book called The Drovers: an epic of the British countryside, by KJ Bonser. “I could not put it down. I realised that drovers’ roads would give me the opportunity to explore two things I hold dear — history and the countryside.

“I swore that when I retired, this was how I would keep myself busy.

“The rusty bike came out of the shed and I began to explore the most beautiful countryside in the world – with new-found purpose. The droving life was better for the soul than the life of today.

“But would we have survived three weeks on the road, four times a year, for 30 years, making an average profit of ten shillings a beast after all that effort? “ Bruce Smith’s website (localdroveroads.co.uk) highlights a fine stretch of an Oxford Lane at Gagingwell. It starts at a difficult bend on the B4030, by slate-roofed Cuckold’s Holt Farm (formerly a drovers’ inn called the White Hart).

As the ancient drove road skirts Enstone Airfield you find a wide, deserted thoroughfare flanked by splendid oaks and ashes - the green ghost of a once majestic highway.