London blogger Diamond Geezer (see 6000 miles… passim) located London’s Most Central Sheep in this post. And the rules were pretty simple:
I’m only interested in live sheep, so not a cuddly toy in Hamleys nor lamb cutlets at The Ritz. I’m not interested in temporary sheep like those that get driven over Southwark Bridge in September or shorn at the Lambeth Country Show in June. Also by ‘most central’ I mean closest to the centre of London which is generally agreed to be Trafalgar Square, specifically the statue of Charles I at the top of Whitehall. Hopefully that’s clear.
And using some traditional foot-based detective work and some internet sleuthing, he found London’s Most Central Sheep:
Here she is. She’s in the sheep enclosure at Vauxhall City Farm, lapping away at a bowl of water resting on a spare tyre.
And all was well with the world.
Except…
That isn’t London’s Most Central Sheep. In fact, it seems likely that it might only be London’s Third Most Central Sheep. DG had overlooked Oasis Farm Waterloo, less than a mile from Trafalgar Square.
And so he has revisited the question. And he found two sheep there. So those would be London’s Most Central Sheep.
Except…
There may be an additional issue.
…they might have been goats. Their heads were hidden so it was hard to be 100% sure what kind of cloven animal they were. The Oasis Farm Instagram feed has a number of photos of sheep but also some of goats so it is possible I saw the wrong animal.
Their website also says “our farm animals rotate from Jamie’s Farm in Wiltshire”, suggesting they’re not always here, and also that “we usually have a ewe with her lambs”, which before lambing season may mean they currently don’t. Alas this isn’t cut and dried.
At the end of the day, it’s reasonable to say that he has accomplished what he set out to do.
He has found London’s Most Central Sheep. It’s just that it is either 0.8 miles or 1.4 miles from Charles I statue in Trafalgar Square. And if it turns out that he was correct in the first post, and it is 1.4 miles, then he’s also managed to find London’s Most Central Goat.
Bonus points right there.
I’m sorry?
You’re saying that no-one would ever need to know where to find London’s Most Central Sheep?
Well, that just sounds like a ewe problem.