Walthamstow Marshes: English Longhorn cattle
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Walthamstow Marshes: English Longhorn cattle by Nigel Cox as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
Walthamstow Marshes: English Longhorn cattle
Image: © Nigel Cox Taken: 28 Jul 2010
The longhorns are kept on the marsh during the summer to graze and to help maintain the precious marshland environment. By eating nettles, Michaelmas daisies, Creeping Thistle and Russian Comfrey, they help the rare Creeping Marshwort to thrive as well as assisting square-stalked St John's Wort, Common Fleabane and Meadow-rue to increase. Despite their fearsome horns the breed is usually very docile. They became increasingly rare after the Second World War, with a move towards cereal fed cattle that could take up less space and which would be less likely to injure one another, but were rescued by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust in 1980, and subsequently as a result of an increase in demand for grass fed lean beef.
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Image Location
Latitude
51.566261
Longitude
-0.04817