Sir Tatton Sykes. 253 



firs have been planted with no sparing hand, and a 

 training gallop of nearly two miles cut through them. 

 It was used for some years after the old man's death 

 by the present Mr. John Singleton and his father ; 

 but the ruts have become deep, and no work is done, 

 and " no questions asked" there now. From thence 

 the transition was easy to Etty's favourite walk twice 

 a day by the church. For many years this great 

 Yorkshire painter spent much of his summer here, 

 under the roof of Mr. Singleton's father. No spot 

 pleased him so well, when he could escape from his 

 easel and the olive-tinted haze of London. " I often 

 in fancy," he wrote, " fly away to Givendale, as the 



the Eddlethorpe lettings, where he once gave 6o| guineas, after a sharp 

 contest with Mr. John Simpson. In 1845 he went to Mr. Wiley for 

 the first time, and for fourteen years never missed drawing on his 

 beloved "union of Buckley and Burgess, with a dash of Stone." He 

 has also visited the last-named breeder at Barrow on his own account. 

 His first Sanday essay was in 1854, with a two-shear, which took a first 

 prize in Mr. Sanday's hands at the Royal Carlisle Show, and in one of 

 his many hirings from Holmpierrepont, he took the shearling which Mr. 

 Cresswell bought at the sale. Mr. Edwards, of Market Weighton's 

 draft ewes of Sledmere-Burgess blood, started him in 1840, and he con- 

 tinued to get a few each year through a friend. In 1854 he bought ten 

 ewe and a ram from Mr. Buckley, and as many more at Mr. Hewitt's 

 second sale, in the same year, and half a dozen at Mr. Sanday's first sale 

 in 1860. He generally lambs about 180, and lets from 50 to 60 tups. 

 This year and last they averaged about io/., but none of them have 

 quite touched the Sanday and Wiley Tibthorpe, who was let to Mr. 

 Stavely of Tibthorpe for 37/. los. as a two-shear, and for 3o/. lew. the 

 next year. Firm mutton, thick wool, and purity of blood have been all 

 Mr. Singleton's aim, and, unlike many flock-masters on the Wolds, he 

 never would have a dash of Lincoln. His first public auction was in 

 1855, and his customers are almost entirely Yorkshire men, and include 

 six or seven ram-breeders. " Sim" Templeman is a regular customer 

 and he is pretty generally brought in for a speech when " The Turf" is 

 drunk with all the honours, as is only fitting in a Yorkshire congress. 

 In 1867, Commander-in- Chief, so called after the celebrated Warlaby 

 bull, stood at the head of the list, and there was no mistaking, when 

 you glanced at his fleece, "the reason why" Mr. George Lane Fox's 

 agent had given 28/. 5^. for him. Young Commander- in- Chief was 

 hired by Sir Tatton Sykes in 1869 for 4i/. The best shearling at 

 that letting made 35/. IOT., and the best two-shear 37/. IQJ., for 

 Ireland. 



