SPORT ANCIENT AND 



MODERN 



To the inhabitant of the south of 

 England, the notion that any form 

 of field sport can flourish in the 

 county of Durham may possibly 

 appear absurd. If, when poking 

 his fire, his thoughts should be diverted by train 

 of consequence to such a hyperborean region, 

 he probably pictures it to himself as a vast 

 cinder-heap, only relieved from hideous monotony 

 by the reeking chimneys of blast furnaces and 

 collieries, where the inhabitants heave the pro- 

 verbial ' 'arf-a-brick ' at strangers, and find 

 relaxation from their subterranean toil in the fine 

 old English pastimes of dog-fighting, badger- 

 baiting, and selling their wives for pots of beer. 

 Yet in good truth, Durham is naturally one of 

 the most beautiful counties in England. Granted 

 that part of it has been scarred and defaced by 

 man's handiwork, where hideous collieries and 

 their attendant squalid pit villages stand cheek by 

 jowl with grand old Saxon churches and Norman 

 castles, there equally remain large tracts whose 

 pristine beauty is still undefiled, while it may be 

 safely asserted that the manners and customs of 

 the proletariat admit no inferiority to those of 

 similar great industrial districts, where work is 

 both plentiful and highly paid. 



Moreover, from the earliest times, no part of 

 England has been more closely associated with 

 field sports, and it is probable that, with the ex- 

 ception of the New Forest, there were few 

 larger tracts reserved for sporting than the great 

 forests of Weardale and Teesdale, which respec- 

 tively formed the hunting-grounds of the prince- 

 bishops of the palatinate, and their scarcely less 

 powerful neighbours, the Nevilles of Raby. The 

 exact extent of the forest of Weardale does not 

 seem to have been defined, but it probably in- 

 cluded all the district now termed Weardale to 

 the west of Stanhope — the villeins of which mostly 

 held their land by due of forest service — and 

 north-west again to at least the valley of the 

 Derwent. Frequent reference to the bishop's 

 forest and its requirements is found in the Boldon 

 Book, a survey of the palatinate estates made in 



1 1 83, by order of Bishop Hugh Pudsey, to an 

 admirable monograph ^ on which, by Canon 

 Greenwell, the writer is indebted for much inter- 

 esting information. From this it would appear 

 that, no doubt owing to difficulty of locomotion, 

 the great hunts of the bishops necessarily partook 

 of the natureof veritable expeditions. Enormous 

 stores of provisions, wines, and beer, were trans- 

 ported into the forest, where temporary habita- 

 tions were erected for the prelate, his guests, and 

 retainers — though it is probable that a good many 

 of the latter ' lay all night up among the deer 

 out on the open fell ' — and relays of men were 

 employed in carrying the venison down to Auck- 

 land and Durham, and returning laden with 

 fresh luxuries or necessaries for the bishop's table. 

 Indeed, the whole affair seems to have been 

 conducted on much the same epicurean lines as 

 the tiger-shooting or pig-sticking excursions of 

 Anglo-Indians of a past generation. Thus we 

 read that 



All the villans of Auklandshire . . . find at the 

 great hunts of the Bishop for each oxgang — the extent 

 of their arable land — one rope, and make the Bishop's 

 Hall in the forest of the length of 60 feet, and of the 

 breadth within the posts of 1 6 feet, with a buttery 

 and a hatch, and a chamber and a privy, also they 

 make a chapel of the length of 40 feet, and of the 

 breadth of 1 5 feet . . . and they make their part of 

 the fence round the lodges, and they have on the 

 Bishop's departure a whole ton of beer, or half if it 

 remain, and they guard the aeries of hawks which are 

 in the district of Ralph the Crafty . . . Moreover all 

 the villans and farmers attend the roe-hunt ' at the 

 summons of the Bishop. 



Again, 



Moreover all the villans^-of Stanhope — make at 

 the great hunts a kitchen and a larder and a kennel, 

 and they find a settle in the hall and in the chamber, 



' Publications of the Surtees Society, vol. xxv, 1852 ; 

 BolJon Book, &c., by the Rev. William Greenwell, 

 Fellow of University College, Durham. 



' Note the distinction between the great hunt — 

 ' Caza Magna ' — when presumably only red deer were 

 killed, and the roe hunt — ' rahunt.' 



385 



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