Regional legend · 3 min read · Set in Pinfold Lane ·
The Cow That Crossed the Boundary at Pinfold
A red-and-white dairy cow walked across the parish boundary at Pinfold Lane in 1894, and the villages on both sides of the line still argue over which of them owns the calf she had on the far side.
- status: disputed
The parish boundary between Pinfold and the Ashby glebe runs along a drystone wall that follows the crest of a low ridge above the lane. The wall is neatly built and well kept. On the Pinfold side it is hung with ivy and wild roses, and on the Ashby side it is bare, grazed to the root by sheep. The two parishes have been arguing about its line since the eighteenth century, and the argument came to a head in the summer of 1894, when a red-and-white dairy cow named Dorothy went through a gap in the wall and did not come back.
The Pinfold farmer, a man named Henry Dunn, said the cow had been his. He had bought her at Ostmark fair the year before and had marked her with a brand on the left flank, a crooked cross. He went to the Ashby side to look for her and found her grazing in the glebe field, calm and well-fed, with a small calf at her side. The calf was black and white, a bull calf, and it had Henry's brand on its flank too, in a fresh, perfect cross.
The Ashby farmer, a woman named Martha Stott, said the cow had come onto her land of her own accord, and that the calf had been born on the glebe, and that by the law of the boundary, whatever stood on the glebe belonged to the glebe. She offered to buy the cow for five pounds. Henry said she could have the calf and welcome. He wanted the cow back.
The magistrates at the petty sessions heard the case in the autumn. They found that the boundary wall had a gap at the spot where the cow had crossed, and that the gap had been there since the spring, and that nobody on either side had repaired it. They ruled that the cow belonged to Henry, but that the calf, having been born on the glebe, belonged to the glebe. The cow was returned to Pinfold. The calf stayed in Ashby.
Neither side was satisfied. The Pinfold men said the calf had been theirs, because the cow had carried it across the line on Pinfold ground, in the morning, before it had been born. The Ashby men said the calf had come into the world on the glebe, and that was all that counted in law. Both parishes have kept a record of the dispute in their minutes. Both have a copy of the magistrates' ruling pinned to the notice board by the church door.
The calf grew up in Ashby. It was a fine animal, black and white, with a dark brand on its flank that nobody had ever put there. It lived to old age on the glebe pastures and never once went through the gap in the wall. When it died, the Ashby vicar buried it under a yew tree at the top of the field, and the Pinfold farmer came over to watch, and stood on his own side of the wall, with his hat in his hands.
The gap has never been mended. Each spring, the cows on both sides of the ridge push through it, one after the other, and stand for a minute on the wrong side of the boundary, looking back at their own pasture, as though they are not quite sure which field they belong to. The farmers say it is the only thing the two parishes have ever agreed on.