20 HISTORY OF THE BRAMHAM MOOR HUNT. 



and Birkin Willows is as pretty a fox covert as a man > 



need wish to put an eye on. A fine riding country is 

 on all sides of it, and many a good gallop has had its 

 starting point there. Farther to the east is a similar 

 country round Burn. Bishop Woods are a great strong- 

 hold, and foxes are generally plentiful there, and it is 

 questionable whether there is a better place for cub 

 hunting in the whole of the Hunt, and certainly there 

 is not on that side of it. Gateforth Common Wood, 

 though a big covert, is one from which foxes generally 

 go away smartly, at least such has been my experience 

 the few times I have been there ; and there is a bit of 

 very fair country towards Gateforth village, Hambleton, 

 and Thorpe Willoughby. The Boot and Shoe Woods 

 are also good coverts which always hold a fox, and in 

 the early days of the Hunt hounds used to stay at the 

 Boot and Shoe to hunt that part of the country. There 

 are some good coverts and nice country about Monk 

 Fryston, which lie in between the Boot and Shoe and 

 Gateforth ; the coverts and the country being very similar 

 to what they are in the latter locality. There is one big 

 drain that takes a litde getting across. The Towton and 

 Saxton coverts lie to the north of this division, close to 

 Stutton and Grimston Park. There is a good deal of 

 heavy plough in this part of the country, and when hounds 

 run fast over it, as they do sometimes, the long rises and 

 heavy clay soon make horses give up pulling. Renshaw 

 Wood is perhaps the best covert that is hunted from 

 Towton. It is a long wood on a hill side which slopes 

 down to the river Cock, and at the southern end of it is 

 a field which is known as the field of the White and Red 

 Roses. For it was close to Renshaw Wood that the 

 heaviest part of the fighting took place at the battle of 

 Towton, on that dreadful Palm Sunday, when no quarter was 



