But last year, just 150 fillies were born. Is this the end of the Shire?

A FARMER wearing a straw hat and a loose shirt talks gently to the large horse plodding forward as it tills the brown soil with the harrow.

No power line in sight, no traffic jam to pollute the atmosphere, just man working with nature.

The sight is enough to pierce the heart, and reminds you of the days when England was indeed "a green and pleasant land".

Yet this vision of man and horse working as one - a vision that has shaped Britain and its culture for thousands of years - is threatened as never before.

For the few working horses that remain are dying out.

According to the Shire Horse Society, the number of breeding mares has dropped by a third in the past 10 years, and there are no longer enough foals to replace an ageing population. At the turn of the last century, Britain boasted more than a million working horses. But just 150 fillies - the breeding Shire mares of the future - were born here last year, and 50 of these were exported to America.

Shires are the best known of the four remaining workhorse breeds - the Suffolk Punch, the Clydesdale and the Percheron are the others - but every one of them is suffering

"The Suffolk Punch is in an even worse state," says John Ward, of the Shire Horse Society. "In 30 or 40 years' time, there may be no Suffolk Punches left at all."

Their demise has been blamed on the foot-and-mouth tragedy and the recession in farming. Small farmers, many of whom used working horses as a tourist attraction to boost their meagre incomes, have failed to make ends meet, and have either disposed of the animals or gone out of business. The breed societies are so concerned they are trying to persuade the Government to set up a national stud using Lottery money,

Truly, they are magnificent beasts, with legs like oaks and the trademark hair on their ankles - bred into the beasts to make buyers think they were getting horses with thicker, stronger legs.

Britain's biggest ever Shire, called King, stood 19.2 hands high, or 6ft 6 at the withers. He ate two bales of hay, a basket of apples and 251bs of oats a day. What he left in the stables provided a quarter of a ton of fertiliser each week.

In the Stone Age, working horses were used for their meat and milk. Centuries later, Julius Ceaser's troops used the beasts in battle.

Over the years they became known as the English Great Horse, a fighting beast designed to carry knights clad in armour.

By the 18th Century, the horse had replaced oxen on farms - a man with two horses could plough an acre a day, walking 11 miles. They were also used in cities by breweries to drag drays and deliver beer.

They came into their own in the Great War, lugging artillery and ammunition, and in the Second World War, where power was scarce and their pulling power was in demand.

Between 1945 and 1950, increased agricultural mechanisation meant 600,000 heavy horses were slaughtered.

Doug Joiner is passionate about heavy horses. Indeed they are the pivot of his business, Heavy Horses, which offers an award-winning, professional working horse service to woodland managers, owners and contractors. He is a professional logger and qualified trainer and works for wildlife trusts, organises demonstrations and works horses at shows all over Britain. He also manages Childerwood, in the heart of the Herefordshire countryside. It offers high-quality training opportunities in horse logging and woodland management, and manages the woods to the highest possible silvicultural, environmental and aesthetic standards.

Doug, who is chairman of the British Horse Loggers, has worked with heavy horses for years and keeps his two Percherons - Ella and Jacob - in tip-top condition, pulling logs, controlling bracken and scarifying heathland and woodland across the country.

He also owns and works a couple of Cobs, another breed about which he is passionate.

"Not enough heavy horses are worked any more which is a real shame," says Doug.

"That is why the breeds are dying out. If they were worked regularly, you would keep them fit for the purpose. It's a sad fact that farming with horses is only viable if you have big teams. It is to the detriment of British forestry that more horses aren't used. Machinery pollutes the environment, damages the ground, and bruises the roots, causing the trees to die.

"I'm not a complete Luddite who wants machinery replaced with horses, but horses are more flexible and you don't need such a large area. You can reach places you can't reach with machinery. If more people were able to work their horses, more would be bred and their value would increase."

Doug says he has at last found his niche in life. "I started out as a teacher but realised I wanted to work with horses. The only way was a logger. So I set up the business and demand for our services is growing all the time, which is great publicity for heavy horses."