90 WILD WHITE CATTLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



Northumberland, the Bishops of Durham had, even so 

 late as the time of Leland, a very large park. He 

 says : — " The Bishop of Duresme hath a praty square 

 pile on the north syde of Were ryver, caulled the 

 Westgate ; and thereby is a parke, rudely enclosed with 

 stone, of 12 or 14 miles in compace. It is XII.* miles 

 in Weredale from Akeland Castelle." In earlier times 

 all the country round was one vast forest, including 

 within it moor and mountain. " Here the bishops held 

 their great forest hunt, and had their master of the 

 forest, bow-bearers, and park and pale keepers, with 

 other officers, resident in this building." f " They 

 exercised in this forest all the royal privileges that the 

 king did in any of the Crown forests." Numerous 

 lands were held of the bishop by the service of " at- 

 tending the lord with one or more greyhounds in his 

 forest hunt in the great chase in Weardale." 



Running high up into the same range of hills and 

 at its farther end, quite contiguous to the bishop's 

 Forest of "Weardale, was the great baronial Forest of 

 Teesdale, which, following the course of the Tees, and 

 containing at its lower extremity the Chase or Forest of 

 Mar wood, extended to Barnard Castle. That castle, 

 with these its hunting grounds, belonged successively 

 to the Baliols, afterwards raised to the Scottish throne, 

 and subsequently to the Beauchamps and the Nevills, 

 Earls of Warwick. By the marriage of the daughter 

 and co -heiress of Richard Nevill, Earl of Warwick, the 

 King-maker, in 1471, with Richard, Duke of Gloucester, 

 afterwards Richard III., it became the property and 



* Leland was mistaken about the distance ; this park was about twenty 

 miles from Bishop Auckland. 



f " History of the County of Durham : " Leeds Mercury Office, 1828. 



