Squire Sands

High Graythwaite Hall,
the ancestral home of Squire Myles Sandys

This song is a version of the old Cumbrian hunting song ‘The Holm Bank Hunt’. I noted it down from an original recording made by Geoff Wood at Egremont Crab Fair in 1965. It was sung in the Dialect Song
competition by a singer named Jim Hewitt.

When the text here is compared with original, the oral tradition of changing place names and some of the facts can be clearly seen to have been in action. The most glaring changes are High Griffith Hall instead of the original High Graythwaite Hall, the Squire's name was spelt Sandys, and the distance the hounds chased the fox in five hours, fifty miles in this version and eighty in the original.

Photo of framed painting of hunting scene

Painting of Holm Bank Hunt hanging in Graythwaite Hall.
The red coated huntsman is Squire Myles Sandys 1723-
1793, his hunting crop can be seen in a glass case below.

The song ‘The Holm Bank Hunt’ is sung by a character in one of the ’Swallows and Amazons’ series of books by the author Arthur Ransome.

In ‘Swallowdale’ the second book in the series, a ninety year old Neddy Swainson sings the song to an eight year old boy. The version Ransome used was published in a collection of essays entitled ‘The Heart of England’ written by his friend RG Thomas in 1906. Thomas learned the song from a friend who had collected it from a singer at the Westmorland Musical Festival. All eleven stanzas of the song, which commemorates the memorable days of hunting in 1743, can be found on the webpage The Holm Bank Hunting Song - All Things Arthur Ransome.

Squire Sands

It was yonder last winter to Holmbank there came
A true good old sportsman Squire Sands was his name
Came hunting the fox he said Reynard should die
And he cast off his hounds and began for to cry

Chorus
Tally-ho! Tally-ho!
Hark forrard good hounds, Tally-ho!

There was Ranter and Royal, two hounds of great fame
And broad little Snowball to challenge the game
There was Driver and Dancer, some excellent hounds
They’ll put up bold Reynard if he lies above ground.

The hounds they did rattle in the cover along
‘Till they came to a place where the scent it grew strong
‘Till they came to the place where the fox he did lay
And Reynard flew off for to show them the way.

Through Kirby and woodland they merrily passed
To Broughton and Dunnerdale they came to at last
Up Seaton to Costa and to the Cumberland side
And at Dagar in Ulpha bold Reynard he died.

It was such a foxhunt as ever was known
For horsemen and foots men were rottenly thrown
To keep within sound it was out of all powers
For the hounds chased the fox fifty miles in five hours.

Now gentlemen sportsmen whoever you may be
All you that love hunting draw nigh unto me
Bold Reynard is killed and we’ve seen his downfall
Here’s a health to Squire Sands of High Griffith Hall.

About Mick

Mick Haywood is a traditional folk singer & folk song collector who has run and organised folk clubs and festivals for many years. He now lives in Whitby, North Yorkshire.

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Leeds Years

Squire Sands

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