A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



Rabbits were unknown at Netherby in 

 the early part of last century. Indeed, Sir 

 Richard's father remembered them being 

 introduced 'somewhere about the year 1825,' 

 and they must have been singularly scarce for 

 long afterwards, for in 1848 only 134 were 

 killed during the whole season, and on 

 28 November, 1849, f ur guns got a mixed 

 bag of 137 head without a single rabbit in it. 

 The number shot (2,351) in the record year 

 1887 bears a very small proportion to the 

 15,418 head of other kinds of game. Sir 

 Richard Graham turned out a hundred brace 

 of Hungarian partridges in 1895 with the 

 result of a 'marked increase of stock in 1896.' 

 In a good season there are 15 days cover 

 shooting at Netherby without going over the 

 same ground twice. 



From none of the old places of Cumber- 

 land would a series of far-stretching back- 

 records of sport be of more interest than 

 from Muncaster, for all kinds of game and 

 wildfowl were plentiful there, and such a 

 display as that under the eyes of the Bolton 

 Abbey monks in Landseer's well-known 

 picture must often have been made and 

 could sometimes no doubt be made now, 

 though the two varieties of deer would be 

 park-fed and not hill-fed. To sportsmen and 

 also to antiquaries who, though accounts of 

 modern shooting may be distasteful, take a 

 keen pleasure in investigating little details of 

 domestic life of ancient days, the rough 

 jottings of long ago as to the deer missed or 

 killed, the place and the weapons used, would 

 be of the deepest interest. The great oaks of 

 Muncaster must many a time have looked 

 down upon tired men coming back from the 

 hill or wood, exultant or disappointed, full of 

 trying some new weapon, some crossbow or 

 harquebuse, which were to them just what 

 express rifles and hammerless ejectors are to 

 us. But there is no game book going back 

 any length of time here, or at Ponsonby or 

 Crofton or Bray ton or Workington Hall or 

 Hutton, and we fancy that the registers of 

 shooting, carefully kept day by day, are a 

 comparatively modern invention, very little 

 more than a hundred years old. No doubt 

 entries of this kind were made in diaries and 

 journals so far back as when men went 

 to the chase, and diaries and journals were 

 kept, but such documents are not of much 

 interest to succeeding generations, and are 

 often considered mere lumber and treated as 

 such. 



Muncaster formed part of the great forest 

 of Copeland which was under Percy Earl of 

 Northumberland, who gave the game to Sir 

 John Pennington, and Lord Muncaster has 



among his deeds one of the nineteenth year 

 of King Henry VII. granting to this Sii 

 John the master forestership of Eskdale and 

 Wastdale. Here were to be had deer both 

 red and fallow, and grouse and blackgame 

 from the hill ; salmon from the Esk, the Irt, 

 and the Mite ; oysters from the Ravenglass 

 shore ; trout, perch, pike and eels, and charr 

 and sea fish of all kinds ; woodcock from the 

 sunny hillsides and coppices, and wildfowl in 

 great abundance. There is an old decoy 

 pond in the park, but the ducks, so sensitive 

 to any change in their surroundings, seldom 

 visit it now. 



Some fifteen years ago the estate of Dale- 

 garth, which now belongs to Lord Muncaster, 

 used to be shot over with dogs and yielded 

 an average of about a hundred brace of grouse 

 in a season. Since then it has been systema- 

 tically driven, and five years ago the hundred 

 brace were killed in one day, a very good 

 proof of how judicious driving will improve a 

 moor. The result would be better still if 

 this moor were not, for various reasons, a 

 difficult one to manage. 



Hutchinson 1 says ' some pheasants were 

 introduced by Lord Muncaster ' ; also that 

 he had a large rabbit warren at Drigg. ' In 

 the winter season there is so great plenty of 

 woodcocks in Muncaster (which they catch 

 in snares or springes) that the tenants are 

 bound, by the custom of the manor, to sell 

 them to the lord for pence apiece.' 3 Hutch- 

 inson copies this and adds, ' they are of late 

 years become very scarce.' 



The park of Greystoke is one of the 

 largest in England ; as seen on the map its 

 green circumference would take in any half- 

 dozen others in the county. If its owner 

 cared for shooting as much as he does for 

 hunting and farming, it could be made a great 

 preserve. Without going outside the main 

 boundaries of this far stretching enclosure, 

 one to be measured by thousands instead of 

 hundreds of acres, almost every species of 

 game may be found. Its rich pastures and 

 sunny banks and woodlands rise gradually 

 towards the fells, and then run into wilder, 

 thinner woods, and great stretches of heather, 

 where there are grouse and blackgame. In 

 addition to the ordinary varieties of game, 

 some especial ones may be mentioned. When 

 driving grouse here in the autumn of 1898, 

 Mr. Senhouse of Netherhall shot a white- 

 fronted goose which flew across the line, and 



1 History of Cumberland, i. 570 (published 



'794)- 



* Nicolson and Burn, History of Cumberland, ii. 



21 (published 1777). 



434 



