CHAPTER XIII. 



EARLY DAYS OF THE SINNINGTON. 



After " In the North Count ree " had gone to press, its 

 author came across a gentleman who gave him some valuable 

 information, which is contained in an addenda to the volume 

 mentioned. He informed him that a kinsman had 

 had some interesting documents relative to the Sinning- 

 ton Hunt, bearing a date in the middle of the seventeenth 

 century, but these were most unfortunately destroyed at 

 his decease. One of these documents set forth the boun- 

 daries of the Duke of Buckingham's country. I admit that 

 I cannot quite conceive the necessity for any such document 

 at this period when the Duke was alone hunting the fox in 

 Yorkshire, and when his own estate was all too wide for him 

 to hunt regularly ; but, nevertheless, we are told this docu- 

 ment bore his signature, and that of Graham, and gave the 

 following as the boundaries of the territory : — 



From Old Malton up to the Rye, up Howe Beck, and to the source 

 of it ; thence to Byiand Abbey, from thence to Tom Smith's Cross, 

 and Hambleton Plain, and across East Moors to Bilsdale and Bransdale 

 end. The boundary extended from Mitchell's Plantations to Lowna 

 Bridge ; thence up Hangman's Slack to Hartop Beck Meetings, and by 

 Aislaby Whin to Pickering. The Pickering country they were not 

 allowed to hunt on account of the deer on the Crown lands in the 

 neighbourhood, and there was a clause binding them to stop the hounds 

 " if running within a certain distance of the said Crown lands." 



This document, it seems to me, would be drawn up more 

 with a view to the preservation of the Royal forests than in 

 respect of fox-hunting rights in the neighbourhood. Possibly 

 it was to give permission for certain of the forests to be 

 hunted. The Sinnington country, of course, recognises some 

 of these boundaries now-a-days. The Bilsdale and Farndale 

 claim a good portion of the territory mentioned, having, as 

 already shown, kept hounds in the dales which respectively 

 give the packs their name, after the Duke's death, and formed 



