154 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. 



ia the Tyneidale country, for North. Wall bottle is really almost 

 extra- parochial, being on the extreme boundary, and shutting 

 off no covers from the open parts of the hunt. Nor is the 

 particular district in which it lies quite such good hunting 

 country as the rest of the hunt, for there is far more arable 

 land in proportion to grass in this south-easterly corner of the 

 Tynedale country, and some of this arable is very holding. 

 Callerton Hall used to be a frequent meeti for this part of the 

 country, and the best covert on the estate is — perhaps I should 

 say was — the whin at Hold House. This ooverti I saw drawn half 

 a dozen times in two seasons, and there were never fewer than 

 three or four foxes in it. One rather peculiar hunt I remember 

 from it, nearly all of which took place in the Morpeth country. 

 It was not a fast hunt, nor a. particularly good one, but it 

 ended with a kill, after a seven-mile point. Hounds ran east, 

 crossing the high road a mile north of Woolsington Hall, and 

 going on by Dinnington, ran to Seaton Bum House, killing 

 their fox in the garden. The late Mr. Frank Snowball, who 

 then lived there, entertained the field, and I remember a 

 discussion in his dining-room as to how far some of us were 

 from home — Callerton, it may be mentioned, is further from 

 the kennels at Sta.gshaw Bank than any other meet of the 

 Tynedale Hounds — and it transpired that Mr. Straker, the 

 Tynedale M.F.H., was over thirty miles from the Leazes, Hex- 

 ham, where he lived. And in those days Mr. Straker rode 

 hacks to the meets, and home again at night. I reckoned that 

 that day — for they drew again at Darras Hall and had another 

 run — he must, have ridden nearer eighty than seventy miles. 



The village of Stamfordham, thirteen miles north-west of 

 Newcastle, is the centre of the Friday country, and in some 

 degree the capital of the Tynedale Hunt. It is a plain, rather 

 old-fashioned village built round a green, in the midst of a 

 pleasant agricultural country, and has nothing remarkable 

 about it except that, it contains a great deal of stabling, which 

 is taken up by various members of the Tynedale Hunti. It 

 is central for the whole country, but is not a. residential village, 

 for it chiefly consists of farm buildings, stables, public-houses, 

 a few shops, and a good many cottages. The river Pont, runs 

 through it, and there are good coverts within a mile or two on 

 every side. I must, however, deal with the principal public- 



