In prehistoric times domestic swine were herded through the forest, living on beechmast and acorns, and would often have mated with wild boars. Like humans, pigs are omnivores eating plant or animal material and will forage and scavenge on household scraps. For this reason many cultures, particularly those based in warmer climates where diseases are difficult to control, consider pigs to be unclean and unsuitable for human consumption.

In Britain, pigs were gradually improved by importing more prolific and productive strains from the Far east. Pigs were the cottager's animal and all rural families, except the very poorest, would endeavor to own one. Even into the first half of this century, the cottages in rural villages had a sty in the garden.

Since the Second World War the industrialisation of agriculture has completely changed all this. Today pigs are selectively bred from a limited number of specialist strains. They are reared in controlled environments on carefully balanced diets and produce a standard, fast growing, lean supermarket product. Of all our rare farm animals the pigs have suffered the woprst and are still dangerously close to extinction.

They are a reconstruction of the type of pigs which would have been herded through the forests by our Iron Age ancestors. They were created here in the early 1970's by crossing Tamworh sows with a European wild boar from London Zoo, for a scientific reconstruction project which was later copied as the BBC 'Living in the Past' series. The piglets are born striped nose to tail, just like wild piglets, but we have selected for temperament and ours are now fully domesticated.