THE NORTH DURHAM COUNTRY. 29 



cross from one country to' the other. The North Durham 

 a few years agO' ran to the Grove, and I have known of several 

 couples of the Zetland running to ground at Broomshields. 

 They had come from the Black Banks, just east ol Wolsingham, 

 and a whipper-in was sent after theim, and had no trouble in 

 recovering them. But as far as my experience goes the foxes 

 from the Black Banks, or from the Ha.i*perley estate on the 

 North Durham side of thei Wear, merely cross a.nd recross the 

 Wear, and do not leave the district, while if they get a little 

 way into- the neighbouring country they are stopped and 

 brought back. East and north of this Wear Valley country are 

 the Brancepetli covea-t?, and though collieries are much more 

 numerous than they once were, there is still a fine stretch of 

 country between Conisay and the Wear at Sunderland Bridge 

 — about tcin miles' in distance — all of which is very regularly 

 hunted. Quite near Cornsay lies the Almshouses Whin, a 

 sure find, and fairly good to get away from, as foxes go over 

 the Cornsay Hill to Gladdow or down the Dearness valley to 

 the Monkey's Nest, which is also a whin covert, on the site of 

 of the once famous Town's Plantations. I can remember this 

 district when the collieries were just beginning to appear, and 

 when it was all plain sailing from Lord Bute's to Brancepeth, 

 and even now the country is not greatly cut up, because a 

 colliery and its cottages, coke ovens, and so forth are always 

 concentrated and cover no great area of ground. There is 

 none of the straggling of a suburban district, or even of a large 

 country village; but a coal pit or two, possibly coke ovens, a 

 few railway sidings, and several rows of streets of cottages all 

 dumped down together in a very small space. 



From a hunting point of view the colliery railways present 

 the greatest difficulty, but of course all the crossings are known, 

 and it seldom happens that a field is hung up, for gates are 

 frequent, on account of all the farming interests. Curiously 

 enough, hounds may meet in a colliery village, and hunt all 

 day within a mile or two of the collieriee, and yet never go very 

 near them. Whether foxes visit them for the sake of the 

 poultry at night, these same foxes do not seem to care about 

 going into the vicinity of the pits when they (the foxes) are being 

 run by hounds, and I believe that the same sort of thing has been 

 noted in other colliery countries. In the North Durham the 



