WILD CATTLE IN ANCIENT DURHAM. 89 



hood (Brawn's Path) — with its numerous ancient parks, 

 being intermediate. Before the Reformation wild cattle 

 were kept in the park at Bishop Auckland by the 

 Bishops of Durham. Leland says : — " There is a fair 

 park by the castelle, having fallow deer, wilde bulles, 

 and kin" (kine). And a hundred years later, when 

 Sir William Brereton, afterwards a famous Parliamentary 

 general, visited the place, the " wild beasts " were still 

 there, and as wild as they could be. His MS.* account 

 is entitled " The Second Yeare's Travell throw Scott- 

 land and Ireland, 1635." The writer passes a few days, 

 on his way to Scotland, " att Bishoppe Auckland with 

 Dr. Moreton, Bishoppe of Durham, who maintains 

 great hospitalitie in an orderlie well governed house, 

 and is a verye worthy reverend bishoppe." After de- 

 scribing the palace, " chappies," &c, he thus proceeds : 

 — " A daintie stately parke, wherein I saw wild bulls and 

 kine, w ch had two calves rufiers. There are about twenty 

 wild beasts, all white, will not endure yo r approach ; 

 butt if they bee enraged or distressed verye violent and 

 furious, their calves will bee wonderous fatt." This 

 herd was probably destroyed during the civil war which 

 speedily followed. Anciently the parks and forests 

 which belonged to the Bishops of Durham were still 

 more numerous and extensive, so that there can be little 

 doubt that from some of these forests, which principally 

 bordered on the great mountain chain, these Bishop 

 Auckland " wild bulls and kine " were at first obtained. 

 Here, among the wilds close to both Cumberland and 



* Sir William Brereton was of an old Cheshire family, related to that 

 of Sir Philip de M. Grey-Egerton, to whom this MS. belongs. It has been 

 published in the Annals and Magazine of Nat. Hist., vol. iii., 1839, and 

 also as the first vol. of the Cheetham Society's Publications, 1844. 



