742 APPENDIX S 



them to the said meeting. Lastly, That all pinders who have 

 books of marks, if any sheep come into their hands belonging 

 to any member of this Society, they shall take them to their 

 respective owners, who shall pay them reasonably for their 

 trouble." 



The meetings are still held annually at Saltersbrook and 

 at the Snake Inn in the Woodlands, and though the gather- 

 ings may not rival those of yore, still old tales and re- 

 miniscences are told and 



"Ale and song and healths and merry ways 

 Keep up a shadow still of former days." 



In the early part of the last century a number of Penistone 

 moorland sheep were sold from Rowlee Farm in the Wood- 

 lands and sent into Kent. Three of them did not settle 

 there and started back, and two of them it is recorded actually 

 got back, and the horns of one of them were hung up in 

 Hope Church. 



The seal of the Burial Board of the ecclesiastical parish 

 of Penistone is a horned sheep of this breed. 



The history of the sheep in this country is coeval with 

 its earliest history, and the first woollen manufactory in the 

 island was established by the Romans at Winchester. Some 

 of the fabrics reached Rome, and they were so highly appreci- 

 ated that during the continuance of the Roman domination, 

 in the most luxurious era of the Empire, the finest and most 

 expensive robes those used only in days of festivity and 

 ceremony were furnished by the British factories. One 

 Roman writer, Dionysius Alexandrinus, uses the following 

 language as quoted by Hollinshed, and strongly expressive of 

 the value of the material : " The wool of Britain is often spun 

 so fine that it is in a manner comparable to the spider's 

 thread." The first Guild of Fullers was chartered at 

 Winchester. 



" To spin with art, in ancient times was seen, 

 Thought not beneath the noble dame or queen ; 

 From that employ our maidens took the name 

 Of spinsters, which the moderns never claim." 



British Farmers' Magazine, 1830, p. 436. 



