Wessex Saddleback

The Wessex Saddleback or Wessex Pig is a breed of domestic pig originating in the south-west of England, especially in the New Forest area of Hampshire. It is black, with a white band about the forepart of the body. It is a tall, rangy animal, adapted to foraging in woodland, its original habitat in the New Forest, where there is a long tradition of allowing pigs to forage in woods for mast (acorns, beech nuts and chestnuts). It is one of the few British pig breeds to have been little affected by crossing with "Neapolitan" pigs of Far-Eastern origin, and so is perhaps one of the closest breeds to the pigs which once foraged in woods throughout Britain.

In Britain, the Wessex Pig breed was amalgamated in 1967 with the similarly coloured (but otherwise rather different) Essex Pig to form a hybrid breed, the British Saddleback. A few herds of Essex Pigs have survived in a pure form in Britain, but the Wessex is considered extinct in its country of origin.

However, before amalgamation some Wessex Pigs were exported to other parts of the world, and the breed survives in small numbers in Australia, New Zealand, and perhaps elsewhere.

Similar pigs from Hampshire were exported to North America in the early 19th Century, and formed the basis of the Hampshire Pig, one of the most common American commercial breeds. The Hampshire has since been re-imported to Britain.