About us
Shepherd's Heritage offers premium quality, consciously sourced sheepskin hides in the UK and US.
The origin of our story is in the southeast of England, with a flock of Shetland and Manx Loaghtan sheep grazing the north slopes of the South Downs and historical pastures of the Sussex Weald.
There three Sussex locals and an American transplant found themselves as neighbors and fellow land stewards. A shared passion for active land management, wildlife stewardship, and pastoral animal husbandry, mixed with the blood, sweat, and tears of farming, and christened by pub quizzes, pints of Harvey’s Ale, and commitment to community, bonded them together and set the foundation for Shepherd’s Heritage.
Our values:
Consciously sourced
Our sheepskins are:
- Exclusively of natural coloring and free of dyes
- Sourced from British Isles and European tanneries
- Sourced from family-owned and operated farms and tanneries, when possible
- Sourced from tanneries utilizing environmentally-friendly and natural (think acorns) tanning methods, when possible
- Sourced from heritage breeds, in some cases rare heritage breeds, when possible
Heritage Breeds we carry: Jacobs, Black Welsh, Shetlands, Manx Loaghtan, Icelandic, Hebridean, Herdwick, etc.
Learn more about the importance and value of conserving heritage breeds: Heritage Breeds - The Livestock Conservancy
Community connections
- Shepherd’s Heritage seeks to uplift and showcase the land stewardship knowledge and stories of the shepherd and tanning communities we work with.
- We seek to connect our buyers to healthy landscapes and the animal husbandry communities actively stewarding them.
Premium quality
The values of Shepherd's Heritage allow our customers to experience the many benefits of sheepskin rugs, as well as be assured their purchase supports expert craftsmanship, pastoral communities, and the land stewardship traditions that our products embody. The premium quality of our sheepskin products is an homage to the people and cultural knowledge that make them possible.
UK Operations
Greg
Mistakenly known as the monk living at the base of Chanctonbury Ring, Greg is foremost a human rights and peace campaigner. He is internationally recognized for his dedication to community development and peacebuilding initiatives through his work as the ethical jeweller and founder of Valerio Jewellery and PeaceGold.
UK Sales
Olly
As a fourth generation farmer, Olly runs a pioneering regenerative family farm in West Sussex, where he rears heritage breeds, including White Park cattle and Jacobs sheep, in 100% pasture fed systems, working in partnership with farms throughout West Sussex supporting the adoption of environmentally-sensitive techniques and habitat restoration on pastured lands.
You can find Olly at leading London farmers' markets selling Danefold Farms grass finished beef, hogget, honey, and cured meats alongside Shepherd's Heritage rugs.
US Operations
Mark
Mark hails from a family of farmers who have stewarded the same Irish pastures for over 250 years. The scent of cow dung in the air is a sweet reminder of summers at his gran's dairy and hog farm in Kilkenny.
Mark convinced Anna to move to the UK, where they lived in their beloved Pump House at the base of Chanctonbury Ring, West Sussex. He would frequently serenade the neighboring cows with whatever stringed instrument was at hand.
US Sales
Anna
Anna serves the Sierra Nevada working lands community in California.
Passionate about working land resiliency and agriculture viability, Anna provides technical assistance to ranchers and farmers on local nature-based solutions and regionally advocates for producer-centered and community-led solutions in working land and natural resources management programs and policy.
Anna's love for land stewardship started at her family's farm and has stayed with her through her work in agricultural production.
