Obs. rare. [Of obscure origin.] In Martindale Forest, Westmorland, one of the tenants bound to assist the lord in hunting and turning back deer to the forest.
c. 1670. Machel, in H. Brierley, Hist. Martindale (1907), 108. In the Forests there [Martindale] are tenants they call ‘strones’ bound to assist the Lord in hunting.
1777. J. Nicolson & R. Burn, Hist. Westmorld. & Cumb., I. 410 [citing Machel]. Tenants … whom they call strones.
1864. Mrs. Lynn Linton, Lake Country, 312.
