The Berkshire Breed from Times Past
Uploaded September 2004

"A picture paints a thousand words"

I believe the words of that 1960's song and what better way to illustrate this point than to see the photo of the 1936 Royal Show Champion.

Historically all Royal Show Champions were featured in the Herd book; perhaps we should remember that for the future. I notice over the past decades this practise has been dropped. Maybe we can get the "powers-that-be" talked into reinstating this worthwhile source of information.

I thought I would give you an insight into some of our bloodlines and try to show how they came about.

In 1884 the Berkshire Breed was officially recognised and is indeed one of the Founder breeds of the NPBA - now the British Pig Association. But after a period of nearly 50 years in existence Vanity names abounded, it seems we pedigree pig breeders had (in some cases) Large Egos!

The Excelsa line, which started out as a Vanity line can be traced Geographically through Great Britain, from York to Nottingham to Cambridgeshire then to Berkshire each breeder establishing his version of the line and then passing it on to the next location. I would speculate that the present day Excelsa line traces back to the Cook ham Herd of the Copas Brothers at Cookham Dean near Maidenhead Berkshire.

The Excelsa line is one of the oldest bloodlines in the breed along with the Lady and the Peter Lad all three still with us and flourishing.

DRINGHOUSES EXCELSA 4th
Herd book 14294 7-7
Bred by Colonel G.E. Wilkinson of Dringhouses Manor Nr York
Excelsa - A "Vanity" line that is, Colonel Wilkinson created this line so that his name would be forever associated with the Excelsa.

The practise of naming pedigree pigs of all breeds basically whatever the breeder wanted irrespective of family lines was allowed well into the 1960s. A situation I find very strange indeed, and made tracing a family tree almost impossible.

Thankfully common sense took over and in the early 1960s this nonsense was stopped and thereafter pedigree pigs were named after their sire in the case of males or their dam in the case of females, altogether a much more sensible system.

Many of the Vanity names never made it past the first entry into the Herd book. For example: The Grand Dam of Excelsa 4th was Dringhouses Sweet Briar and was also Dam of at least 2 boar lines and two more demale lines which never appeared in the Herd Book, they just disappeared.

Vaughan Byrne, President