( 71 ) 



CHAPTER VI. 



DESCRIPTION OF COUNTRY — WIRE QUESTION — ANECDOTES 

 OF DICKINS. 



Any one judging of the North Staffordshire country 

 from a glance at the map, without much local knowledge, 

 would be likely enough to set it down as a six-days-a- 

 week country. If you glance at the Ordnance map from 

 Doddington or Adderley or Woore on the west, to Alton 

 Towers and Croxden Abbey on the east, and again from 

 Alsager, and Mow Cop on the north, to Seighford and 

 Cresswell Hall on the south, you appear to have an 

 enormous area to hunt over, but a practical acquaintance 

 with the district and its hunting capabilities will soon 

 remove this too favourable impression. To begin with, 

 nearly one-third of the area is a stone wall, moorland 

 country without coverts and without foxes, and so steep 

 and rugged as to be impracticable for fox-hunting purposes 

 altogether. This applies to a large stretch of country 

 in the north, ranging from Knypersley and Biddulph to 

 Alstonefield, and embracing towns like Leek and Longnor, 

 with numerous scattered villages such as Cauldon, Grindon, 

 Alstonefield, and others. Then right in the centre of the 

 hunt is wedged the enormous population of the potteries, 

 about a quarter of a million, with no less than six towns 

 in a continuous line from Tunstall in the north-west, to 

 Longton in the south-east, thus forming an insuperable 

 obstacle to hunting for many miles. Then on the out- 

 skirts of the pottery towns, extensive collieries and iron- 

 works exist, still further encroaching on the domain of 



