A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



occasional visits from the Tynedale, whose then 

 master, Mr. Maughan, retained an affection for 

 his old country. '' In 1854 Mr. William Cowen 

 of Blaydon Burn, a prominent north-country 

 sportsman,'* came forward, and getting together 

 a pack of hounds founded the present Braes of 

 Derwent. Mr. Cowen's mastership covered 

 fifteen seasons, until 1868, when he was suc- 

 ceeded by his brother, the late Colonel John 

 Cowen. At first this gentleman, who took on 

 his brother's pack, had his kennels at Coal Burn, 

 but they were subsequently moved to Blaydon 

 Burn. His huntsman during the twenty-five 

 years of his mastership was Siddle Dixon, who, 

 Mr. Priestman, the present master of the Braes 

 of Derwent, informs us, was the best blower of 

 a horn, and had the finest voice of any huntsman 

 he has ever known — no mean advantages among 

 the great holding coverts and steep rocky gills 

 which are such prominent features of the Der- 

 went country. Indeed, it was with a view to 

 obtaining a fuller cry of music in these that 

 Colonel Cowen, who was a noted breeder and 

 exhibitor of bloodhounds, introduced a strain ot 

 their blood into his foxhounds, but the experi- 

 ments did not prove a success, the half-bred 

 hounds having a tendency to potter and dwell on 

 the line. Colonel Cowen died in 1895, when 

 his hounds were sold and the hunt establishment 

 broken up. For a full year after his death it 

 seemed as though the country would cease to be 

 hunted, but in 1896 Mr. Lewis Priestman, of 

 Derwent Lodge, came forward, and consented to 

 accept the mastership. He at once set to work 

 to get together a new pack of hounds,'" for which 

 he built kennels on his own property at Tinkler's 

 Hill. He has now been in office for eleven years 

 and has spared no endeavour to promote sport 

 and further the cause of fox-hunting ; and how 

 well he has succeeded is amply proved by the 

 fact that every season he is able to find walks for 

 fifty or sixty puppies. The working pack con- 

 sists of twenty-six couples of hounds which hunt 

 two days a week. From the outset the master 



^ As successors to the Slaley Hounds, the Tynedale 

 long claimed, and occasionally exercised, rights over a 

 large portion of the existing Braes of Derwent 

 country. As a matter of fact the claim still exists, 

 but by amicable arrangement between the present 

 masters of the two packs the Tynedale do not draw 

 east of Healey Burn. 



" Mr. Cowen was well known on the Turf, and I 

 believe sold Lord Rosebery the colt Ladas, which ran 

 in the latter's colours in the Derby of 1 869, while he 

 was still an undergraduate at Christchurch. Mr. 

 Cowen was also the brother of the famous orator and 

 patriot, 'Joe' Cowen, who was a prominent figure 

 in Parliament towards the end of the last century. 



" Curiously enough Mr. Priestman laid the founda- 

 tion of much that is best in his present pack by 

 breeding from a bitch that had been drafted from the 

 North Durham Hounds for being a persistent hare- 

 hunter ! 



has hunted his hounds himself with marked 

 success in an extremely difficult county. Mr. 

 Priestman has no guaranteed subscription.^^ 



The Braes of Derwent country is a wild 

 sporting one, of which more than half is grass, 

 with a very small proportion of plough, the 

 remainder being wood and moorland. Stone 

 walls and bank-set thorn hedges predominate, 

 and, considering the industrialism of its eastern 

 extremity, wire is not so formidable a feature 

 as might be expected. The upper portion of the 

 Derwent Valley is an exceedingly attractive bit 

 of hunting country, yet curiously enough better 

 sport is usually obtained in the more populous 

 district to the east. 



THE GROVE 



Among extinct packs of foxhounds in Durham 

 mention must be made of the Grove Hounds, 

 which existed for a few seasons some thirty-five 

 years ago. The joint masters were the late 

 Mr. Henry Surtees of Redworth and The Grove, 

 and the late Mr. W. T. Scarth of Staindrop, for 

 many years the agent for the Raby Estates. 

 Even after such a comparatively short lapse of 

 time, it seems impossible to glean any definite 

 information respecting these hounds, which how- 

 ever were, to all intents and purposes, a private 

 pack hunting an out-of-the-way and sparsely 

 inhabited corner of the county. Their country 

 seems to have extended from about Crook across 

 the Wear into Mr. Surtees' estates at The Grove, 

 and thence to the Tees west of Barnard Castle. 

 Part of the pack was kept at The Grove itself and 

 part at Keverstone near Raby, where Mr. Scarth 

 then resided. The writer recollects having heard 

 from Mr. Scarth's own lips the accounts of some 

 excellent runs, notably one from Hargill Hill 

 above Witton le Wear to — he thinks — Eggle- 

 ston, but any really definite information respect- 

 ing these hounds is entirely lacking. The pack 

 was dissolved in the early seventies, the best of 

 it going to Mr. Cradockat Hartforth, and a draft 

 to the Calpe Hunt at Gibraltar, while the 

 remainder found a premature grave where the 

 rippling Bedburn flows through the lovely Grove 

 plantations." 



^ I am indebted for practically all the above infor- 

 mation as to the Braes of Derwent Hunt to the 

 article by ' Shotley ' in Tie Foxhounds of Great Britain 

 and Ireland, by Sir Humphrey de TrafFord (London : 

 Southwood, 1906). 



" In making researches about these hounds I 

 chanced on an old gentleman who had been employed 

 in some menial capacity about the kennels, and 

 append his matter-of-fact account of the dispersal of 

 the pack : — ' Wy, Champion cam' and took part 

 hunds tee Hartforth, and ar've heerd theer was part 

 went furrin, and ar joost felled t'oothers an' pitted 

 them doon by t' beck-side.' 



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