British Saddleback - Location and Appearance

Location and Appearance

The Essex pig was mainly found in East Anglia. This pig had a black head and neck, as well as a clearly defined belt of white extending over the shoulders and continuing over the forelegs. The rest of the body was black with the exception of white feet and the tip of the tail.

The Wessex originated in the New Forest as a cross between two indigenous old English bacon pigs. By 1914 the breed was also found in the South and South West. It was black all over, asides from a continuous belt of white hair over the forelegs and shoulder. W. J. Walden writing in the 1931 National Pig Breeders Gazette explains that stringent rules were put in place by the Wessex Saddleback Pig Society at its foundation to prevent alien blood being brought in where the foundation on one side was not of New Forest origin. The breed prided itself on having resisted the trend to introduce Chinese blood. In his article on Wessex Saddleback markings Walden asks “Why then make a feature of the chief colouration marking? Surely it does not take a high intelligence to see the correctness and advantage of the one conspicuous trade mark when two China free breeds are brought together?”

The respective breed societies amalgamated in 1918 and the herd books followed suit in 1967 when the British Saddleback breed was established.