40 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. 



drawing west. On a Friday Witton Gilbert " for Langley " 

 would be advertised, and this meant Sacriston, Nursingfield, 

 and so forth. At the time I am writing of fields with the 

 Durham County were very large compared with what they 

 have since been. I was not often enough on the Sedgefield 

 side of the country to be certain as to the numbers there, but 

 when I did go — and a few years later I was there many times 

 — the crowd was a large one. But it is of the Durham side 

 that I can speak with knowledge, and I may explain that there 

 were hunting people in nearly every country house between 

 the city and the northern border of the hunt fourteen miles 

 away, and many others from the neighbourhood of Chester-le- 

 Street. There would be, at a low computation, five-and- 

 twenty scarlets at a Browney Bank meet, but scarlet was, 

 perhaps, more generally worn than it now is — at least in this 

 particular country. Then, too, Mr. Harvey was a Newcastle 

 man, and had a big following from his native town. Lan- 

 chester is thirteen miles from Newcastle-on-Tyne, and Chester- 

 le-Street eight miles from the same place, and as far as my 

 recollection goes the biggest musters were at Chester Bar and 

 Plawsworth Bar, both on the old coach road between Durham 

 and Newcastle. Horses used to be sent to Lanchester over- 

 night for Browney Bank meets, and their owners would drive 

 the fifteen miles to the covert in the morning, except Mr. 

 Harvey, who always hacked the full distance. In 1863 the 

 Durham to Consett railway was opened, and it was possible to 

 box to Lanchester or Knitsley, but. this involved a change 

 at Durham for those coming from Newcastle or Sunderland, 

 and though horses were sent by this route the hunting men 

 usually held to the road. Three or four years later the rail- 

 way was extended from Consett to Newcastle, and there was 

 a handy train which left Newcastle a little before ten and 

 brought hunting men and their horses to within a quarter 

 of a mile of a Knitsley meet, or into Lanchester just at the 

 right time. 



If hounds were at Browney Bank a little law would be 

 allowed for the train contingent, and Knitsley became a 

 favourite meeting place, and has remained so to this day. I 

 have seen as many as seven horse boxes on this train while 

 Mr. Harvey was in office, and four or five was a very usual 



