22 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. 



to High Stoop, or Iloiislip Bridge, on the borders of 

 the Broomshields estate, but the successors of Mr. Creighton 

 Foster's beagles v/ere the pack which Mr. J. E. Rogerson 

 owned for a sieason or two before he took the North 

 Durham foxhounds, and the defunct Shotley Bridge 

 beagles, of which Mr. Arthur Falconer was Master. Each of 

 these packs showed excellent sport, and the Shotley Bridge 

 "psuck once rivalled Mr. Watson's feat of killing five hares in a 

 day. Both packs were followed by an unmounted field, and 

 at thisi period — the middle and later 'eighties — these tvv'o packs 

 and the Darlington each came in turn, there often being hare 

 hunting in the neighbourhood every week. The Durham con- 

 tinued their visits under a succession of masters, and before 

 the war Mr. Frank Bell, who bought Mr. Allgood's harriers 

 from North Tyne, hunted the country very regularly and 

 showed excellent sport. 



And now to go back to foxhunting in the North Durham 

 country, mention must be made of Gladdow, two miles north 

 of Broomshields, and which has been for fifty years, and still 

 is, one of the very best coverts in the hunt. Gladdow is 

 placed on a steep hillside, and its virtue lies in the fact that 

 when one part- of the covert becomes thin another part is 

 always ready to take its place as a fox sanctuary. It consists 

 of two larch plantatioais, a small wood of forest timber, in 

 which there is strong undergrowth of holly and other shrubs, 

 and about half a dozen acres of gorse, which adjoin the covert 

 on its east side, and which at the present day is practically a 

 certain find. Perhaps there have been more good runs from 

 Gladdow than from any other covert in the hunt, and one of 

 my first recollections of it goes back to the early days of Mr. 

 Maynard's mastership, when hounds ran to the North Planta- 

 tion (Lord Bute's), theinoe to The Sneep (Braes of Derwent 

 country), Greenhead, and then, after a widish circle in the 

 Shotley country, came back to Mosswood, where they killed 

 in the road, close by the woodman's cottage. The great thing 

 about Gladdow was that its foxes had no notion of hanging 

 about their own country, but always went for a distant point, 

 and this no doubt caused the high reputation which the place 

 has always held. Mr. John Groenwell owned a part of it, and 

 in his* day nine finds out of ten were in that part, but no^v the 



