THE HAYDON COUNTRY. 123 



The three countries of which I have written, viz., the North 

 Durham, the Braes of Derwent, and the Haydon, are, as 

 regards the land over which hounds hunt, about as unlike the 

 average Midland hunt as it is possible to be, and the great 

 difference is caused by the fact that each hunt is located in a 

 hilly district, in which the flat plain is conspicuous by its 

 absence. There are plains and plains, and those who are 

 acquainted with Salisbury Plain, for example, are well aware 

 that the so-called plain is undulating everywhere, with a 

 variation in places of many hundred feet in height. But in 

 the particular part of the north of England in which these 

 hunts are located it is difl&cult to find a flat field, let alone 

 a flat district, and in place of the undulations of the Mid- 

 lands there are real hills, which do not in the least interfere 

 with the hunting. Chiefly because they cross the country — 

 most frequently from east to west — in ranges, and slope very 

 gradually towards the top of each range. The really abrupt 

 places are few and far between, and, curiously enough, such 

 places are abrupt on one side only. Thus the village of Corn- 

 say, a favourite meet of the North Durham, is about 1, 000ft. 

 above sea level, and while it is reached by quite a gentle ascent 

 from the Durham side, the rise from the Browney Valley, on 

 the west, is exceedingly steep. Grey Mare Hill, in the Braes 

 of Derwent country, is just the same, abrupt on the north for 

 fiearly half a mile, and so gradual on the south side that car- 

 riage horses — when such things were used — would trot to the 

 top as a matter of course. Such flat, or perhaps less hilly, 

 land as there is in these hunts is to be found in the Wear 

 Valley part of the North Durham; but there is no flat land 

 in the Braes of Derwent country, and as far as my memory 

 goes next to none in the Haydon Hunt. Then, too, each 

 of the three hunts joins the moors, and whereas all of the 

 Haydon country is wild and thinly populated, this description 

 also applies to the better half of the North Durham, and to 

 the western and larger part of the Braes of Derwent. T have 

 made some mention of these physical characteristics of the 

 countries before, but have referred to the subject again because 

 a correspondent has written to ask if "it is not true that 

 nearly all the hunting with the North Durham and Braes 

 of Derwent is on the grouse moors? " In reply to this, I can 



