North Berwick Ponies on The Law


There are eight Exmoor ponies, all geldings, living on a lovely piece of public land called the the Law in North Berwick, Scotland. It's on the coast, a short train ride from Edinburgh, and they've been there since October 2013 thanks to the initiative and vision of an exceptional man employed by the local council at the time whose name is Duncan Priddle. 

The main feature of the land is a volcanic plug which gives the place it's name: the Law. It is all that remains from an ancient eruption and it sticks up 187m in an otherwise gently undulating landscape. The ponies regularly climb to the top of the Law and Sylvia Beaumont, who lives nearby, is often there to take their photos to post on the FaceBook page dedicated to this small herd. Earlier this year she captured a moment where the ponies were drawn to a man playing his bagpipes with the Law in the background. The video she took of the moment was enchanting.

We went to visit Sylvia and the ponies this summer, and for the long journey John dug out a copy of John Muir's best known book, My First Summer in the Sierra, to read on the way––Muir was born in nearby Dunbar and made his name as a pioneering conservationist in the USA. When we stepped off the train in North Berwick we were both delighted to find ourselves on the John Muir Way, which took us directly to the Law, where Sylvia and Dino, one of the ponies, were waiting to greet us (which, unfortunately, I did not photograph, but here's John and the John Muir Way sign:) 


Piecing together bits and pieces of the story from a few sources, we discovered that the herd arrived in several tranches and that along with the joy they bring, natural tragedy and human folly also light up the story. Four of the ponies here today were part of the first group to arrive: Sherlock, Artemis, Oberon and Rebel. The other four are two couples (Jack and Sparrow; Dino and Pluto) who arrived at different times, and in different ways. The photo below is from Sylvia, who says that the four at the front are part of the original herd (Sherlock, Oberon, Rebel and Artemis), and that the two at the back (Jack and Sparrow) are the ponies who had a particularly hard time of it upon their arrival. 


Little spikes of emotion in an otherwise sea of calm reveal the history of these ponies. These moments of upheavals create the landmarks to the story as does the Law which rises suddenly against a backdrop of beauty and everyday life. Like markings on a map they gradually reveal the contours in a network of activity that holds the scene together.  

Local to the Law is a team of volunteers who make sure that the ponies are checked each day. Sylvia is part of that group. A couple of hours away there is Juliet, a reliable, knowledgable woman who makes herself available and responds to the ponies in case of need or emergency. She is the chair of the charity that owns these ponies (The Moorland Mousie Trust), and she oversees an extended network of grazing ponies on different sites across the northern parts of Great Britain. A small set of rangers are employed by the local council and it is their job to try to manage this realm with the modern discourse of regulation – procedures, practices, protocols – summed up by the well known phrase "health and safety." 

Sylvia told us how the arrival of Jack and Sparrow did not go according to plan. Instead of being led down to track to meet the rest of the herd, Jack and Sparrow bolted up the hill with the rangers hot on their heels. They were gone for hours, and only reappeared at 8.30pm that evening! By this time the existing herd simply could only interpret them as interlopers and responded accordingly. It took five months before the new ponies were fully accepted into the existing herd. Sylvia watched and waited, patiently recording the way the relationships played out. It was a very different story when Dino and Pluto arrived––this video shows their first encounters:

 


From what I have learned, I would say that the herd persists, resists and opens up opportunities that can transform anxiety into love. They create conversations that otherwise wouldn't exist. I like to think that they not only help hold back the nettles and thistles with their grazing, but that they could, with care, also help us to hold back the weeds of pernicious discourses that might otherwise proliferate. 




John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra, introduced by Robert MacFarlane, Edinburgh & London Canongate, 2007

Juliet Rogers, Chair, The Moorland Mousie Trust

Ilona Amos, journalist at The Scotsman. This article is about a nearby site, with Exmoor ponies from the MMT living on Traprain Law. It is easy, for us who live further afield, to confuse the two sites, but the North Berwick site is the one with the FaceBook page, whose ponies can be followed on a daily basis, thanks to Sylvia Beaumont's dedicated work. 

Sylvia Beaumont, manager of the North Berwick Ponies FaceBook page and whose daily photos can teach us a lot about the way the ponies live peacefully on The Law. I think you can see from these photos that, from the ponies' point of view, Sylvia is a special part of this herd. Photos and video are by Sylvia, except for the one of John under the sign post for John Muir way we thank her very much for letting us use them here.

Jenny Hargreaves is currently team leader for countryside conservation officers and rangers at East Lothian Council

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