278 WILD WHITE CATTLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



tif ul valley of the river Bibble, in the district of Craven, 

 and in one of the most romantic parts of the northern 

 portion of the West Biding of Yorkshire, but close to 

 the confines of the north-eastern boundary of Lancashire, 

 from which it is only distant about four miles: the cele- 

 brated Pendle Hill being about twice as far off. The park 

 is about half-way between Clitheroe and Skipton, places 

 about eighteen miles apart, but is somewhat nearer 

 to the former. The primaeval state of this country, as 

 narrated by its learned historian, Dr. Whitaker, has been 

 described before ; it was anciently, like the greater part of 

 the North of England, one vast district of forests, moors, 

 morasses, and rocks, with a few fertile and cultivated 

 dales intermixed. The estate once formed part of Gris- 

 burne Forest, while the still more extensive Forests of 

 Bowland and of Blackburnshire were closely contiguous. 

 The Listers have had considerable property in the 

 neighbourhood of Grisburne since the year 1312, which 

 they then acquired by the marriage of John Lister with 

 Isabel, daughter and heiress of John de Bolton, Bow- 

 bearer of Bowland. 



The famous cattle of Grisburne Park are thus 

 described by Bewick in 1790 : — " At Grisburne there 

 are some perfectly white, except the inside of the ears, 

 which are brown. They are without horns, very strong- 

 boned, but not high. They are said to have been 

 originally brought from Whalley Abbey, in Lancashire, 

 upon its dissolution in the twenty-third of Henry VIII. 

 They were said to have been drawn to Grisburne by 

 the ' power of music.'" 



Bewick's brief description, given above, of these 

 cattle as they were then, is, from all I have been able to 

 learn, perfectly correct ; latterly some changes took place 



