NORTHUMBERLAND AND DURHAM. 151 
All the forests of Northumberland were formerly well stocked 
with deer, and these forests embraced a large portion of the 
county. They were Cheviot, Rothbury, Reedsdale, Eresdon 
(near Longhorsley), Lowes (from the lakes or loughs in it), 
Allendale, and Knarsdale. 
In the fourth year of King Henry VIII., (1512), the forests of 
the Earl of Northumberland, in that county alone, contained 
6000 head of deer; red, roe, and fallow. There were also at 
that time red deer in the forest of Rothbury. 
The investigation of the boundaries and former condition of 
the forests of the county; the dates when they were disforested, 
and any records of the animals that inhabited them, would 
be an interesting study for some of our members, and an 
excellent subject for a paper. It is not to be supposed that 
these forests were densely wooded; they were probably then, as 
many of them are now, chiefly moorland, rock, and heather; 
indeed Leland, in his itinerary,* says “in Northumberland as Z 
heare saye, be no forests except Chivet Hills, where is much 
brushe wood and some oake. Grownd ovar growne with Linge 
and some with Mosse. I have hard say that Chivet Hills 
stretchethe xx miles. There is greate- plenty of redd Dere and 
Roo Bukkes.” This was in 1538. 
In the forests of Weardale, in the neighbourhood of Durham, 
and further eastward to the sea-coast, we have abundant evidence 
of the former existence of deer in great plenty. 
Leland, writing at the date just given, says, “there resorte 
many redde dere, stragelers, to the mountains of Weredale.” 
Froissart, speaking of the pursuit of the Scots by the army of 
Edward IIJ. in 1827, says of their march from Durham that 
“whan they had thus ron forth often tymes in the day, the 
space of harfe a myle together towards the crye, wenying it had 
been theyr ennemyes, they were deceived, for the crye ever arose 
by the reysing of hartis, hyndis, and other savage beastis.”’ 
And Hartlepool is called by Bede Heoprea or Heopru, the 
place where harts drink; here, therefore, deer probably abounded, 
and the town-seal, a stag in a pool, perpetuates this derivation 
of the name. 
* Vol. VIL. pt. I. 66, edit. 1799, 
