Sussex cattle

The Sussex is a British breed of red beef cattle from the Weald of Sussex, Surrey and Kent, in south-eastern England. Its traditional use as a draught ox on the Weald continued into the twentieth century. From the late nineteenth century it began to be selectively bred for beef production. It has been exported to many countries of the world; the largest population is in South Africa, where there may be half a million head.

History

The Sussex is one of several similarly-coloured breeds of southern England – the others include the North Devon, the Hereford, the Lincoln Red and the Red Poll. These were primarily draught cattle, with powerful forequarters but less-developed hindquarters, and so not particularly suited to beef production.

Arthur Young Junior wrote in the early nineteenth century that the cattle of the Weald "must be unquestionably ranked among the best of the kingdom". William Cobbett in his Rural Rides also expressed surprise at finding some of the finest cattle on some of the most impoverished subsistence farms on the High Weald. The breed was numerous in Kent and the Wealden parts of Surrey as well as in Sussex in the late eighteenth century when Arthur Young toured Sussex and praised the breed in his book Agriculture of Sussex of 1793. He stayed at Petworth House where the progressive 3rd Earl of Egremont established a Sussex herd in Petworth Park which is still there today.