A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



without exception, appear to have come to the 

 conclusion that it is past redemption, and either 

 made their rights over to angling associations, or 

 practically surrendered them to the public. How 

 far the interests of the few should override the 

 pleasure of the many is a question that does not 

 come within the province of this article, but 

 there is no doubt that at present the river is fished 

 to death with fly, and bait of every description 

 from worm to salmon-roe. We could point to 

 many beautiful stretches of the Wear beautiful 

 to the artist's no less than the angler's eye where 

 careful preservation and restriction of the number 

 of rods would go far to restore its trouting capa- 

 bilities ; but this could only be effected by a com- 

 bination on the part of the riparian owners. Nor, 

 perhaps, would such action be held to be specially 

 desirable from a social standpoint, in view of the 

 gratification that the less wealthy portion of the 

 community derives from practically unrestricted 

 angling. Praiseworthy as the efforts of the 

 various angling associations are as regards pre- 

 servation and restocking, they naturally look to 

 the numbers of their members as the means for 

 effecting these, and thus the remedies do little to 

 counterbalance the evils. Nor are the tributaries 

 of the Wear in any better plight. Nearly every 

 one of them is ruined by pollution. Exception 

 must, however, be made of the charming and 

 and carefully preserved little Bedburn, which 

 joins the main stream opposite the village of 

 Witton le Wear. But below this, every other 

 tributary of the Wear is merely an increased 

 source of pollution, while two of them the 

 Gaunless, which unites with it at Bishop Auck- 

 land, and the Browney, which does so at 

 Sunderland Bridge are of sufficient volume to 

 merit the name of trout streams in themselves. 

 It is only of comparatively recent years that the 

 latter has become polluted to its present extent ; 

 the writer can remember fishing it twenty-five 

 years ago at Lanchester, when it was perfectly 

 pure, and literally teeming with trout. This 

 was a striking proof of what could be done by a 

 determined riparian owner ; the then owner 

 of the Ford estate near Lanchester, the late 

 Mr. Kearney, though not a fisherman Irmsslf, 

 steadfastly refusing to allow the stream to be 

 used as a conduit for colliery effluents. 



The Wear still nominally ranks as a salmon 

 river, but it is difficult to fix even the approxi- 

 mate date when it actually ceased to deserve 

 that title. That its fisheries were once of con- 

 siderable value is shown by the carefully kept 

 accounts of the monks of Finchale ; but the 



' The prior of Finchale derived great profit from 

 his fishery of salmon. In 1531 he sold not fewer 

 than 51 J dozen of salt salmon to the bursar of Dur- 

 ham at 6s. per dozen. Fresh salmon were sold at a 

 higher rate. From I March, 1532, to 13 April 

 following, 173 salmon were cooked in the kitchen at 

 Durham. In January a ' seamyn,' or load, of fresh 



river appears to have gradually lost its character, 

 no doubt with increasing pollution through 

 successive centuries, while the owners of dams 

 on the lower waters appear to have had extremely 

 selfish ideas as to what proportion of fish should 

 pass on to benefit their neighbours of the higher 

 reaches. One of the worst salmon obstructions 

 was the dam at Chester le Street, and the writer 

 was once told by the late Colonel Johnson, ot 

 the Deanery, that the fishery below this was of 

 considerable value in the early part of the last 

 century. None the less, the Wear does not give 

 the impression that it can ever have been a first- 

 class salmon river ; it is too small, and in a 

 drought quickly runs out of order, and for this 

 reason the pollution becomes intensified tenfold. 

 It is possible that if the latter objection could be 

 abolished, or at least mitigated, salmon would 

 again ascend the river in fair numbers, despite its 

 comparatively small volume. 7 



Of other Durham rivers, only one, the Der- 

 went, which divides the county from Northum- 

 berland, needs mention. Here again, we have 

 the spectacle of a lovely stream ruined by pollu- 

 tion, though above Consett it is not yet past 

 redemption, and the local angling association has 

 done much for its betterment. Given proper care, 

 and a fair chance of recovery, the Derwent might 

 easily become the best trout-stream in Durham. 



Before finally quitting the subject of Durham 

 angling, it may be interesting to recall the fact 

 that one of the best salmon flies in existence 

 the Wilkinson and in the writer's opinion the 

 very best trout-fly, the Greenwell's Glory, were 

 invented by residents of Durham. The former 

 was the creation of the late Mr. Percival Wilkin- 

 son, of Mount Oswald, and the latter of Canon 

 Greenwell, no less renowned as an angler than 

 an archaeologist, and its history may fittingly be 

 given here. The actual insect of which it is the 

 imitation was first noticed by Canon Greenwell 

 when fishing the Tweed more than fifty years 

 ago, and a pattern of it was dressed according to 

 his directions 8 the same evening by James Wright, 



salmon cost g/. The price of a single fish varied 

 during the season from is. id. to 6J. (Surtees Soc. 

 vol. ii, 1837). All these salmon, however, were not 

 taken in the Wear, many of them being brought from 

 the prior's fisheries on the Tyne. 



Trout, too, had a marketable value, as shown by 

 the following entry in the priory accounts for 1361 : 

 ' Et de ix* v 1 ob receptis de troudes venditis per 

 tempus compoti.' Compotus, the yearly reckoning or 

 account of the priory (ibid.). 



' Of late years salmon have taken to re-ascending 

 the Northumbrian Coquet, which is a smaller 

 stream than the Wear. Of course there is no pollu- 

 tion here. 



8 The proper dressing of the fly is wing of the 

 inside of a blackbird's feather, coch-a-bonddhu hackle, 

 and pale yellow or tinsel body. The present Wright 

 of Sprouston ties them better than any other tackle- 

 maker of our experience. 



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