White Horse Farm Shires

White Horse Farm Carriages specialises in the beautiful and rare Shire horses. These fascinating creatures have played such a huge role in our history and we are passionate about making sure they are around for future generations to enjoy. We currently have eight Shire horses, four rare white and four black. Beauty our white mare is used for Asian weddings, she is the largest female Shire in the country and is the epitome of gentle giant. Honour & Valour are our male and female white pair, and they are possibly the most well behaved horses ever. We also have Jim & Guinness who are our award winning black pair, they are often competing in shows and most recently won best turned out in the 2017 Edenbridge & Oxted Show.

All our Shires live with us at our farm and have a team of specialist looking after them. They all have their own comfortable stable and plenty of huge paddocks to graze in on their days off. They are regularly visited by the farrier, vet and dentist to make sure they are always in top health.

The Shire horses have a long and interesting history throughout Britain. From as early as the 16th century there has been a need for these powerful and placid creatures. When heavy plate armour was being used in wars the need for a strong horse to carry the soldiers into battle was great and through selective breeding came a horse known as the Great Horse. After a change in warfare where heavy amour was not used as much they favoured faster breeds of horses for battle and the Great Horse was needed elsewhere.

Farmers became increasing aware of their use in the farm as they were easy to train and could pull heavy loads. The industrial revelation is where the Shire horse really saw a rise in popularity when canals were build and heavy loads needed to be pulled. At this time they were also being used to pull omnibuses, trams and drays.

Sadly the heyday of the Shire was not long lived and after the use of railways, tractors and cars became increasing popular the Shire horse population fell from well over a million to as little as a few thousand by the 1960's. The Shire breed is now classified as at risk with as little as 1,500 left in the world but due to the work of dedicated farmer this number is slowly going up and their use as a working and riding animal is being recognised more and more.