THE BRAES OF DERWENT COUNTRY. 61 



where there are many rows of cottages. Sixty years 

 ago there was a single farmhouse where there is now a big 

 population!, and it was all plain sailing over the top of the 

 ridge between Medo-msley and Consett, where, indeed, there 

 were heather-covered fields and larch plantations, and which 

 were still in existence when I was a boy. There is, just above 

 the present kennels, a long, narrow gill, which then was almost 

 a mile in length, and was called Whiteside Plantation. 

 The name is lost now, and much of the plantation disappeared 

 when the branch line from Newcastle to Consett was made 

 in the 'sixties ; but the gill, before the railway workers came, 

 was a sure find, and on the occasion referred to hounds found 

 in it, and went over Beiry Edge farm to Bunker's Hill, where 

 they checked for some time. Indeed, they were on the point 

 of going back to the covert, which had only been half drawn, 

 when a single hound was seen a quarter of a mile in front. 

 The pack were taken on, and ran to Boggle Hole, in the 

 Durham country, whence they bore right-handed over the 

 valley of the Smallhope to Newbiggen. They then crossed 

 the since frequently used point-to-point course diagonally, and 

 ran by the Roman encampment to Holly Bush, then a young 

 gorse covert. They did not stop here, but went by Hamsteels, 

 under the hill at Esh, and on to Hill Top, which, in those 

 days, was not only a strong covert but had a big gorse on its 

 western side. There was some delay here, but hounds got 

 through the gorse and the wood beyond, and, going on faster 

 than before, ran to the outskirts of Durham, killing their fox 

 at Western Hill, a bare half-mile from the cathedra!. Mr. 

 Richardson used to say that the pace from Bunker's Hill to 

 Holly Bush was good, that they went very slowly, picking it 

 out field by field between Holly Bush and Hill Top, and then 

 went a cracker to the end. He also used to add that before 

 they had broken the fox up more people had arrived than had 

 been with him at the start. It happened to be a very fine 

 day, and nearly sieventy years ago on any fine day lots of people 

 would he riding about the country, and throughout the hunt 

 they were constantly joined by the local population who had 

 not been at the meet. From Shotley Bridge, half a mile from 

 the scene of the find, to Durham is fourteen milea by a road 

 which, in parts, follows) the Watling-street, and which is very 



