Looking Back at Barningham's Parish Bull and the Milbank Arms

And, perhaps, because once it had its own bull, the Parish Bull which lived at Bull Acre.

The Sea Scouts tend to the boundaries of the Bull Acre in Barningham

READ MORE: BARNINGHAM NAMED AS ONE OF THE COUNTRY'S POSHEST VILLAGES

There was a news item in the paper a couple of weeks ago about how the 7th Darlington Sea Scouts had been working with the Barningham Net Zero Community Interest Company to plant trees around the edges of the Bull Acre, a field owned by Barningham parish.

The Bull Acre was let to a local farmer who either kept the Parish Bull there or who used the field for his own purposes but kept a publicly-available bull at his farm.

The bull was available for a couple of shillings to anyone in the parish who had a cow that needed servicing, although research by the redoubtable Barningham Local History Group shows how over the decades parish meetings devoted quite a lot of time to discussing – we hesitate to say the ins or outs of, or even matters arising from – the bull.

In 1878, the Vestry Meeting inspected the creature and decided that he was “not up to the standard required” and that a “larger size and superior breed” should be acquired. The minutes say that should the Bull Acre tenant “secure a first class bull”, he would be able charge three shillings for each “efficient service” – a rise of a shilling.

However, there was obviously concern over the performance of the bull. His service might be efficient, in that he got down to work promptly, but his end product was not all it should be, so in 1888, it was agreed that the bull’s fee would be one shilling per cow serviced and then another shilling when the cow was proved be in calf – payment by results.

It would seem that in 1900, Mark Anderson, the tenant of the Bull Acre, had an outstanding Parish Bull because he was able to charge five shillings per cow, the highest fee recorded in the parish minutes.

In the 20th Century as artificial insemination proved successful, demand for the Parish Bull drooped – although it stuck as a nickname for the local human lothario – and in 1968, the parish decided that there was “negligible demand” for his services. The field was then registered as a charity, providing an income for the parish, and the obligation to keep a bull was ended.

In centuries gone by, most communities must have kept a communal bull. For example, the Barningham historians discovered that down the road from them in Newsham, there was a Bull Charity from at least 1777 that rented out three fields to pay for a communal bull. That charity was still going in 1945.

Are there any other remainders of Parish Bulls anywhere?

The Milbank Arms at Barningham before its 2018 refurbishment

READ MORE: EATING OUT REVIEW OF THE MILBANK ARMS

BEFORE we leave Barningham, regular readers may have noticed this week that Memories visited the posh village under a different guise to write a review of the Milbank Arms, a pub we had last visited when it was one of just eight in the country not to have a bar – the landlord, Neil Turner, would disappear down some stairs into a cubbyhole and then re-emerge carrying the drinks.

Neil Turner serving from his cubbyhole at the Milbank Arms

According to Round the World, a compendium of every conceivable historical fact about Barningham written by Jon Smith of the village history society, the pub was originally called the Royal Oak. After the Milbank family bought the village estate in 1689, its name was changed.

And, as befits a centuries-old pub, landlord Neil, who died in 2021, insisted it was haunted. In the dead of night, he said, one of the bedrooms turned freezing cold. The door would open three times, and then the temperature would return to normal. Guests also reported seeing a girl in a long taffeta gown rustling through the corridors…