Seems a strange situation for holding Wrestlings

Seems a strange situation for holding Wrestlings

Seems a strange situation for holding Wrestlings

The top of High Street, a mountain near Haweswater, in Westmorland, seems a strange situation for holding Wrestlings, Jumpings, Horse Races, and other sports. This mountain is 2,700 feet above the level of the seaa breezy elevation, forsooth, for such pastimes. Nevertheless, they were held annually on the 10th of July for many years, and long continued to be a flourishing institution. The primary object of the gathering was this:On the heaves or pastures of mountain sheep farms, stray sheep are kept and cared for. The shepherds, on the day appointed, drive them to the place of meeting, and give them up to the rightful owners, who identify them by certain marks. After this important business has been gone through, a dinner is set out, and washed down with libations of ale or spirits, and, by the time keen appetites are satisfied, numerous additions have increased the assemblage, and then commence the wrestling, &c. It forcibly illustrates the deep hold these pastimes have in the minds of the rural population, when they are indulged in at such meetings and in such situations. From information which has been gathered from an aged native of Kentmere, it appears that the High Street gatherings fell into neglect, and were discontinued about sixty years since. They have been supplemented by similar onesminus the races and wrestlingsheld annually in November at the little road side hostelry on Kirkstone, and at the "Dun Bull" in Mardale, where sports and wrestlings are held annually on Whit-Monday. Mardale is at other times a lonely, little frequented dale, at the head of Haweswater. On one occasion the landlady of the "Dun Bull," on being remonstrated with for supplying sour porter in June, excused herself by saying: "Why, that's varra queer! It was freysh enuff last grouse time!"