298 WILD WHITE CATTLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



ford Park, Cheshire, who possess a peculiar breed of 

 white cattle, which are undoubtedly of the same race as 

 those at Middleton, and, of unknown antiquity, came, 

 centuries since, from Shakerley in this district, only a 

 few miles distant from Middleton and Blakeley. 



The descendants of the Middleton wild cattle are 

 not yet extinct. When Sir Ralph Assheton, second 

 baronet of Middleton, died in 1716, leaving only 

 daughters, his nephew, Sir Ralph, became third 

 baronet, and the possessor of Middleton. He died in 

 1765, leaving two daughters co-heiresses, and the 

 baronetcy became extinct. Sir Harbord Harbord, after- 

 wards the first Lord Suffield, married the elder daughter, 

 inherited Middleton and the wild cattle, and took the 

 latter to Grunton, his place in Norfolk. To that place 

 we now follow them. 



