A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



combine a philosophical temperament with re- 

 markable pedestrian powers. At the present 

 time a day's driving will probably yield a bag 

 five or even ten times as large as that which was 

 formerly obtained on many of the Durham 

 grouse moors over dogs, and this is especially the 

 case on the famous Raby moors in Teesdale. 

 It is to be regretted that the practice of keeping 

 game-books or shooting diaries did not commend 

 itself to the sportsman of a past generation. 

 Fortunately, however, Henry, Duke of Cleveland, 

 was an exception, and through the kindness of 

 Lord Barnard we have been enabled to see those 

 of his game-books which are still at Raby. The 

 oldest of the duke's game-books is for the year 

 1 846, where in ' Teesdale ' {sic) the day's bag 

 on 12 August was 75 brace of grouse, the 

 number of guns not being stated. The total 

 bag for the same season on the Raby estates was 

 2,058 head, made up of 557 grouse, 373 par- 

 tridges, 263 pheasants, 19 woodcocks, 693 hares 

 — of these 1 14 were killed in a single day — and 

 153 rabbits.* 



The year 1849 must have been a famous one 

 for grouse, as between 14 and 24 August, five 

 guns, muzzle-loaders be it remembered, killed 

 1,073 grouse over dogs in Teesdale, an average 

 of almost exactly 60 brace a day — a remarkably 

 good performance. The duke gives the indi- 

 vidual scores of each gun on the 14th — himself 

 21 brace, Sir J. Trollope 20 brace, Lord Seaham 

 14 brace, Lord Hinton 12 brace, and Colonel 

 Arden 4 brace. Another entry for the same 

 year is ' Womergill {sic) 2 1 grouse,' but no 

 further details are vouchsafed. In 1857 three 

 guns — the duke, Mr. Cotes, and Sir J. Trollope 

 — killed 97 grouse on Hinedon Edge ; while 

 curiously enough the largest bag killed that year 

 in Teesdale by the same guns only amounted to 

 52 brace. Hinedon, which may be described as 

 the home moor at Raby, practically forms the 

 south-eastern extremity of the Durham fells, and 

 is a remarkably prolific shooting. It only extends 

 to a little over 2,000 acres, of which a propor- 

 tion is ' white ground ' and reclaimed grass land, 

 yet in 1904 it yielded a bag of 740 grouse, the 

 best day being 13 September, when seven guns 

 killed 142!^ brace. 



The Raby moors in Teesdale are divided into 

 eight distinct beats, known respectively as 

 Middle End, Pike Law, Langdon, the Banns, 

 Ashgillhead, the Weelside,Willyhole, and Widdy- 

 bank, and of these the first two are incompara- 

 bly the best. It is a regrettable fact that no 

 records have been kept of the bags formerly 

 made on these famous moors. The only authen- 



* In 1 906-7 the total bag on the Raby estates was 

 6,792 head — including a large proportion of rabbits 

 — but this applies only to the comparatively small area 

 retained by Lord Barnard for his own shooting, the 

 whole of the Teesdale moors, and a great part of the 

 low ground to the east and north of Raby, being let. 



ticated one that has been traced is on Langdon 

 in 1872, when seven guns killed 987 brace in a 

 single day's driving, and one of the party once 

 informed us that the bag would have be^n con- 

 siderably increased if the supply of cartridges had 

 not run short early in the day. A thousand 

 brace, more or less, are said to have been killed 

 in recent years in one day on Middle End. 



Another excellent Teesdale moor, wedged as it 

 were into the Raby estate, is Mr. Hutchinson's 

 at Eggleston, and crossing the march into Wear- 

 dale we come to what is probably the most 

 attractive shooting in Durham, the Grove 

 estate, belonging to Captain Surtees, where 

 lovely scenery is combined with a first-rate 

 grouse and covert shooting. The rabbit-shooting 

 is also a great feature, and the theory that rabbits 

 and black game will not exist in any numbers on 

 the same ground is confuted here, the latter being 

 remarkably plentiful for the county of Durham, 

 where, as a general rule, they do not seem to 

 thrive.' Beyond the Grove comes the vast 

 stretch of moorland belonging to the Ecclesiasti- 

 cal Commissioners that extends to the Northum- 

 berland boundary. The Weardale moors are 

 never rated quite so highly as those in Teesdale, 

 but with one or two exceptions there is very 

 little, if anything, to choose between them, and 

 in a good season more than one Weardale shoot- 

 ing will yield from four to five hundred brace in 

 a day's driving. 



As is usual in all the northern counties a 

 small proportion of grouse are killed on the 

 Durham moors every season which are smaller 

 and paler in colour than the ordinary birds. 

 They are invariably dubbed ' furriners ' by the 

 dalesmen, by whom they are held to come from 

 Northumberland, just as in the latter county 

 they are reputed to migrate from Scotland ! The 

 reason for their slight but quite perceptible differ- 

 ence in colouration — the writer has seen them 

 almost golden in tint — has never been satisfac- 

 torily explained, but the generally accepted and 

 most natural theory is that they are birds of 

 later broods whose plumage has not reached 

 maturity of colour. 



It is impossible to say when grouse-driving 

 was first introduced into Durham, nor by whom. 

 Mr. Claud Hutchinson, of Eggleston, states 

 that his grandfather not only introduced grouse- 

 driving into Teesdale, but claimed to be the in- 

 ventor of the practice as well. There is no 

 doubt that grouse-driving in rudimental fashion 

 was practised in Durham, as elsewhere, long be- 

 fore it became a general custom. Mr. Fenwick, 

 of Forester's Lodge, Wolsingham, maintains it 

 was in vogue on Colonel Hildyard's Weardale 

 moors over sixty years ago ; but the first person 

 to introduce systematic driving into Teesdale 

 seems to have been the late General Hall, of 



Black game are increasing in Teesdale. 



410 



