Shieling

Life on the summer pastures

Seasonal pasturage, known as transhumance, relied on moving livestock between winter villages in the valleys and green summer commons in the hills. When families arrived in the uplands, they repaired their dwellings and settled in for several weeks. Women and young herders managed the daily care of the dairy cows. They milked the herd, kept the young calves separated in small pens overnight, and processed the yield. Working beside running burns, which also guided travellers into the hills, residents converted fresh milk into cheeses and butter that could be stored for the coming winter months.

Shelter on the moors

The dwellings themselves were simple structures built from local dry stone, turf, or sod, often measuring several metres across. Builders laid timber frameworks across the walls, topping them with thatched heather, rushes, or grass sods. Entrances were low openings, sometimes blocked only by a bundle of birch twigs, and window openings were rare or absent entirely. Inside, accommodation was modest. Beds made of heather rested on earthen banks, accompanied by simple blankets. Basketwork shelves hung overhead to store drying cheeses and dairy vessels, keeping the food safe and dry within one or two compact rooms.

Courtship and mountain song

Life on the high hills gave rise to a rich musical tradition in the Scottish Highlands. Because young women and men spent the summer grazing period together away from the restrictions of village life, the pastures became a natural setting for courtship. Numerous Scottish Gaelic love songs, known as shieling songs, recount romantic encounters, affection, and everyday pastoral duties on the moors. Famous verses, such as those from Loch Ness and Perthshire, describe the charm of the hill bothies, capturing the personal connections formed during weeks spent tending cattle in the uplands.

Decline and landscape traces

Most shielings in upland Scotland and northern England fell out of regular use by the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, though places like the Isle of Lewis kept the system longer. Many abandoned huts gradually eroded back into the turf, while stone foundations remained visible as ruins across the moorlands. Some sites evolved into permanent farmsteads with boundary walls and crop storage stands. Today, thousands of these historic sites are mapped across Scotland, while living variations of seasonal transhumance persist in parts of Norway, northern Sweden, and alpine regions across Europe.

How Shieling is kept

The seasonal migration begins when families lead their cattle into the hills around midsummer. Upon arrival, herders repair the rough huts, patching roofs with heather, turf, and rushes. By day, the cattle graze upland pastures while herders watch them. At night, calves are kept apart from cows in separate folds. Daily work centres on milking and processing dairy in basketwork shelves and stone rooms, turning milk into cheese, butter, and salted curds. The stay lasts from four to six weeks or across the warmer months until livestock return to valley settlements for winter.

When and where

The move to the shielings took place during the summer grazing season, frequently beginning around midsummer. Herders remained on the hill pastures for a month to six weeks, staying as long as the grass could sustain the herds before returning to winter dwellings in the valley.

This custom was once common throughout the Scottish Highlands, the Hebrides, and northern England, situated along hill streams and moors. While the practice faded in Scotland after the eighteenth century, related forms of summer transhumance continue in upland regions of Norway, northern Sweden, and central Europe.

What Shieling means

Shieling life represented seasonal renewal, hard communal labour, and youthful freedom away from winter villages. In Scottish Gaelic tradition, the summer hills were strongly associated with romance and courtship. Songs and poems celebrate both the isolation of the high moors and the warmth of temporary shelter, capturing a rhythm of life tightly bound to livestock, grazing cycles, and mountain streams.

Questions people ask about Shieling

See also

Advent wreathAn evergreen ring of candles lit week by week in the lead-up to ChristmasCyber MondayAn annual online shopping observance held on the Monday following American Thanksgiving.May DayA traditional European festival welcoming summer with greenery, dances and bonfiresYule logA log kept burning on the hearth through the twelve days of Christmas, for luck

Good reading and sources

• Shieling on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-06.