TEE CATTLE OF BEARPARK. 93 



years old or more — for neither the bull nor the coat of 

 arms is charged with the rose, which they acquired 

 during the wars of the Roses. It is very well executed, 

 and appears to be engraved from life, for the horns most 

 strikingly resemble those of the Chillingham bulls.* 



Before I leave this county of the wild cattle I 

 must briefly allude to the beautiful park of the priors of 

 the Monastery of Durham, Beaurepaire — vulgarly, Bear- 

 park — two miles north-west of that city. Prior Hugh, 

 of Derlyngton, by license from the bishop, enclosed a 

 park here between 1258 and 1274, evidently for the 

 purpose of keeping wild animals, for we are told that 

 Bishop Beke, during his quarrel with the convent, 

 broke down the fences and drove out the game. In 

 1311, Bishop Kellawe, however, granted license to Prior 

 Tanfield to enlarge the park ; but in 1315 the Scottish, in 

 their successful irruption into the bishopric, destroyed 

 almost the whole stock and store of game and cattle, f 

 The probability is that, as the park was evidently used 

 for hunting purposes, these cattle were wild. 



When we get farther north and enter Northumber- 

 land, we find the wild cattle retained for ages in the 

 park of the Earl of Tankerville, where they still exist 

 in great perfection. No exact date can be given when 

 this park was first enclosed ; but the cattle here were, 



* The Duke of Cleveland, the present possessor of Raby (whose 

 grandfather, Henry second, Earl of Darlington, was, in the middle of the 

 last century, long before the times of the Collings, one of the first and 

 most celebrated improvers of the Durham cattle — several of the fine oxen he 

 fed being mentioned by Arthur Young in the " Annals of Agriculture "), in a 

 letter to me, dated January 17th, 1875, expresses his belief in the proba- 

 bility of the white wild cattle having formerly existed at Raby, though 

 it is " not recorded," and in the opinion " that the breed of Durham Short- 

 horns is derived from a cross of the white cattle." 



f Surtees's " Durham," vol. ii., p. 373. 



