THE BRAES OF DERWENT COUNTRY. 81 



arable in the lower part of the Derwent Valley, but, as in 

 the Tynedale country, the moment the higher land is reached 

 the arable gives way entirely to grass. 



The tiny hamlets of Carterway Head and Kilnpit Hill, 

 with an odd cottage here and there, are the only houses on the 

 high road from Allansford to the Tyne, and west of them 

 there are no villages in the hunting district, except Edmund- 

 byers and Blanchland, the first named actually on the moors, 

 and Blanchland near the head of the Derwent, and so remote 

 that hounds are never there except to draw the coverts in the 

 immediate neighbourhood. Why foxes never run from inland 

 coverts to the big woods romid about and beyond Blanchland 

 I do not know, but they never do, whereas Blanchland foxes 

 five times out of six come down the valley. In all this western 

 end of the hunt there are no railways — Blanchland is eleven 

 miles from the nearest railway — no collieries, and no popula- 

 tion, and no houses except scattered farms and cottages, and, 

 as has been explained, foxes seldom hang to the woodlands, 

 but are quickly driven to the open, and make long points. 



There are two divisions in the western part of the hunt, one 

 extending from Eboheater, on the Derwenti, right up to and 

 beyond Blanchland, and the other to the north from the 

 summit of the hill down to the Tyne. In the home division, 

 where the kennels are situated, there is a chain of coverts 

 closie at hand, but north of the Derwent, and some two or three 

 little places on the south side, which may be drawn from a 

 kennels' meet. There are, as a matter of fact, lots of foxes 

 quite close to the kennels, but it is difficult to stop them out, 

 as there are many old pitfalls on the hillside behind, where 

 coal was worked from collieries behind the hill many years ago. 

 When Mr. Priestman first took hold he used to find in the gill 

 which joins the puppy yard, but there is now a building estat® 

 (as I have mentioned) close at hand, and the foxes are not 

 there in the daytime, though strongly in evidence as far as 

 poultry claims are conceimed. The upshot is that hounds are 

 usually taken from a kennel meet to the Spring Wood, on the 

 Shotley Hall estate, and this is a fairly sure find, and only 

 half a mile from Mere Bum one of the great strongholds of 

 the hunt. Two brooks — and consequently two gills — come 

 through this Mere Burn, and in parts of it there is capital 



