on the English downlands in the 19th Century, shepherd huts
served as the shepherd's home during lambing time. It was a
solitary 24 hour a day job, with the hut often two miles or more
from the farmhouse. Shepherd huts had a characteristic design of
curved corrugated iron roof and wooden walls with steps leading
to a door at one end typically with wheels allowing easy
relocation. As well as keeping them from harm, concentrating the
sheep in a fold increased the fertility of the land and got it
ready for a spring sown fodder crop. Shepherd huts locally were
permanent structures on high country runs, serving as a base for
the shepherds charged with confining sheep within unfenced
boundaries. The more traditional wheeled variety was reinvented
to suit working life at the time, including roadmen's huts,
'stinky' accommodation for harvest labourers and accommodation
for contract horse ploughmen in Canterbury and North Otago. The
railways used a similar design for single working men's
accommodation, featuring a cur