140 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. 



soutih. of the military road, is Carr Hill, and hereabouts is a 

 wonderful artificial earth which was made by Mr. Barnett 

 of Halton Ca&tle, the^ secretary of the hunt. Anyhow, thia 

 earth has been most fiucceisisful during a long period of years, 

 and from some whins near it' hounds ran a. seven-mile point 

 to Horsley Whin on their opening day some twelve or four- 

 teeai years agO' quite late in the afternoon. Thei coverts I 

 ha,ve mentioned are the principal ones in the (strictly) Monday 

 coomtry which lie to the south of the military road, but there 

 are several sTnall places as well, which only take a few minutes 

 to draw, and each of which at times afford a: hunti, notably a 

 little plantation alongside the road at Matfen Piers. 



North of the military road, and some two or three miles 

 from the kennels, is the village of Whittington, perhaps as 

 popular a fixture as any in the hunt. It is an old stone- 

 built hamlet, consisting of a couple of farmhouses and two 

 or three dozen cottages, and is not on a main road. There 

 are, however, several lanes which reach it from various points, 

 and it is the chief road from the railway at Corbridge to such 

 even smaller hamlets as Great Ryall and Ingoe. Whitting- 

 ton is situated amidst a, sea. of grass, there being fairly flat 

 country to the easti of the village, and undulating ground to 

 the north and west.. And two of the very best gorsei — or whin 

 as they are called locally — coverta in the hunt are near it. 

 And here I may mention that these whin coverts are a great 

 feature of the Tyndale country. There are many of them, 

 mostly situatied in the open field, but carefully fenced and well 

 looked after, with wicket gates tO' allow of ingress and egress 

 to the huntsman. In many of them there is a notice board 

 fixed on to a pole, the notice having " This covert is the 

 property of the Tynedale Hunt Club," or words toi that effect. 

 Some are rented by members of the hunt, and at times are 

 called by the names of those who pay for them, this being an 

 old fashion in the north, as is shown in " Plain or Ringlets " 

 when Mr. Pringle is victimised at the hunt dinner of Sir 

 Moses Mainchance's hounds by being made a member of the 

 hunt and sponsor of a covert. But Kirsopp's Whin, one of 

 the two fine gorses near Whittington, takes its name from ita 

 owner, Mr. James Kirsopp of the Spital, near Hexham, a pro- 

 minent member of the Tynedale hunt, who has been following 



