94 WILD WHITE CATTLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



like the Scottish ones, beyond doubt, denizens of that 

 great chain of hills and forests to which Chillingham is 

 close. Its park is an outlying spur from the Cheviot 

 Hills,* and its " Great Wood," which formerly existed, 

 was connected with the Scottish forests, only a few miles 

 distant, whose ancient wild inhabitants have been found 

 buried in a moss in the valley of the Till, just below 

 Chillingham. These cattle existed in this park in the 

 days of its ancient owners, the great northern barons, 

 the Lords Grey of Wark, and were then called " wild 

 beasts." A full account of the herd, as it is at present, 

 will be given further on. 



Contiguous to Chillingham is the extensive parish 

 of Chatton, a place formerly of considerable importance ; 

 for here King Edward I. had a royal residence, where 

 he frequently resided during the years 1291 and 1292, 

 because, being near the Borders, it was so conveniently 

 situated for secretly influencing the deliberations of the 

 Scottish Parliament on the claims of the competitors to 

 the throne of Scotland. " Chatton Moor " comes up to 

 Chillingham Park ; and here, a.d. 1292, or before, 

 Edward I., for the purpose of sporting, detached from 

 the barony of Alnwick, disafforested, and made into a 

 park called " Kelsowe," about 200 acres of land. This 

 is proved from an inquiry before the justices in Eyre, 

 a.d. 1292, when William de Vesci, Baron of Alnwick, 

 claimed all the privileges his ancestors had possessed, 

 " excepting in about two hundred acres of wood and moor, 

 in Chattone, which were within the forest, but after - 



* Leland does not seem to have entered Northumberland itself ; but he 

 had heard of the wildness of this part of it, remarking: " In Northumber- 

 land, as I heare say, be no forests except Chivet [Cheviot] Hills, and there 

 is great plenty of redde deare and roo bukkes." — " Itinerary." 



