' w UFTS UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES Webster Family Library of Veterinan/ Medicine Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University 200 Westboro Road North Grafton, MA 01536 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. -■t(/-a(^c'» 123 >) 170 ) n 216 J M 220 > J 281 ) JJ 71 7 )» 151 '? >i 12 > )» 89 1) T5 97 't )* 105 ) J» 109 11 45 n 131 »? 178 )) III n 192 n 222 J )' 177 H )) 81 »j j» XVI. t» n II ,, 229 >) )) 166 i> 138 )» 121 1) M 218 JJ }J 338 »J 133 MASTERS OF THE ESSEX HUNT. 1805-1808. — Henr)' John Conyers. 1808-1813. — John Cook. 1813-1818.— Lord Maynard and John Archer Houblon. Manager, Henry John Conyers. 1818-1853. — Henry Jolin Conyers. 1853-1857. — Henley George Greaves. 1 857- 1 864. — Joseph Arkwright. 1864-1879. — Loftus Wigram Arkwright. fLoftus Wigram Arkwright. 1879-1880. — i Sir Henry John Selwin Ibbetson, Bart. (j. W. Perry Wathngton. 1880-1886. — Sir Henry John Selwin Ibbetson, Bart. i885-i888. — Loftus Wigram Arkwright. Acting Master, Charles Ernest Green. 1888-1889. — Loftus Wigram Arkwright. Field-Master, Loftus Joseph William Arkwright. 1889-1893. — Charles Ernest Green. I Edward Salvin Bowlby. ' 1 Loftus Joseph Wigram Arkwright. SERVANTS OF THE ESSEX HUNT FROM 1857. Huntsmen. 1857-1859. — Charles Barwick ; came from the Atherstone ; went to the Craven. 1859-1867. — Thomas Wilson ; promoted from first whip ; afterwards with the Quorn. 1867-1879. — Stephen Dobson ; came from the Rufford. 1879- . — James Bailey; came from the Duke of Buccleuch. List of Hunt Servants. xi. First Whips. 1857-1858.— Charles Shepherd ; went to the Essex Union as huntsman. 1858-1859.— Thomas Wilson ; came from Lord Henry Bentinck ; promoted to be huntsman. 1859-1867.— James Dent; came from Lord Henry Bentinck; went to the Roman Hounds as huntsman. 1867-1869.— Richard Christian ; came from Hon. George FitzWilliam ; went to Mr. Tailby. 1869- 1 870. — William Morgan. 1870-1872.— Edward Cole; went to the Petworth. 1872-1875.— Robert Allen ; went to Mr. Gosling as huntsman. 1875-1879.— Richard Yeo ; went to the Essex Union. 1879-1883.— Frederick Firr ; promoted from second whip, afterwards with Colonel Anstruther Thomson. 1883-1884.— Edward Brooker ; came from the Essex and Suffolk ; went to the Hertfordshire. 1884-1886.— Charles Wesley ; came from the York and Ainsty ; went to the East Essex as huntsman. i'886-i892.— James Cockayne ; came from Lord Galway ; went to the Old Surrey as huntsman. 1892- .—John Turner; promoted from second whip. Second Whips, 1857-1862.— Edward Mills. 1862-1868.— Robert Hepworth. 1868-1874.— Robert Masterman ; went to the Oakley. 1874-1879.— Frederick Firr; promoted to be first whip. 1879-1882.— Charles Littleworth ; came from Lord Portman. 1882- 1 886.— John Turner ; came from the Lanark and Renfrewshire ; went to the Blackmore Vale. 1886- 1887.— Charles Champion. 1887-1892.— John Turner; returned from the Blackmore Vale; pro- moted to be first whip. 1892-1893.— William Maiden ; went to the Duke of Buccleuch. i8g2- .—Henry Easterby ; came from the Tynedale. ALPHABETICAL LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS TO "THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS." Alexander, G., Warley Lodge, Brentwood. Arkwright, Loftus, M.F.H., Parndon Hall, Harlow. Arkwright, W. L. T., Thoby Priory, Brentwood. Baddeley, W. H., Cedar Lawn, Knotts Green, Leyton. Bailey, James, M.P., Shortgrove, Newport, Essex. Ball, Edward A., Egg Hall, Epping. (Five copies.) Ball, J. Henry, The Red Lodge, Woking. Ball, Mrs. W. A., Raby Vale, Thornton Hough, Chester. Barclay, E. E., Roydon Lodge, Roydon. (Two copies.) Barker, John, The Grange, Bishop Stortford. Bethell, Wm., Derwent Bank, Malton. Bevan, R. Y., St. Stephen's Club, Westminster. (Five copies.) Blyth, Sir James, Bart., Blythwood, Stansted. Blyth, Arthur, 15, Cornwall Terrace, Regent's Park, N.W. Blyth, H. A., Stansted House, Stansted. Blyth, H. W., Blythwood, Stansted. Bowlby, E. S., M.F.H., Gilston Park, Harlow. Buckmaster, W. S., Stansted House, Stansted. Bury, C. J., St. Leonard's, Nazing. Buxton, G., Birch Hall, Theydon Bois. Buxton, H. E., Fritton, Great Yarmouth. Caldecott, E., Junior Carlton Club, Pall Mall, S.W. Calverley, J. Selwin, Down Hall, Harlow. Candlish, J. J., Shotton Hall, near Castle Eden, Co. Durham. Carter, Major A. H., R.A., Tilbury Fort. Charrington, Spencer, M.P., Hunsdon House, Ware, Herts. (Two copies.) Christie, C. H. F., Ongar. Collin, C. Chaffey, Harlow. Colvin, R. B., Monkhams, Waltham Abbey. Cowee, Thos., Chipping Ongar. List of Subscribers. xiii. Crewdson, T., NorcHflfe Hall, Handforth, Manchester. Crewdson, a., Alderley Edge, Cheshire. Crocker, Weston, The Grange, Hatfield Broad Oak, near Harlow. Cure, The Rev. L. Capel, Abbess Roding Rectory, Ongar. Dalton, William, Hutton Burses, Brentwood, Essex. Debenham, H. B., 41, Ashley Gardens, S.W. Dent, W. R., Harlow. Docwra, John W., i, Gloucester Terrace, Regent's Park, N.W. (Two copies.) Durrant, Edmund, & Co., 90, High Street, Chelmsford. Edwards, A. J., Beech Hill Park, Waltham Abbey. Egerton-Green, Horace G., King's Ford, Colchester. Ethelston, Captain R. W., Hinton, Whitchurch, Salop. Evans, P. M., New Farm, Epping. Fowler, Howard, Fedsden, Roydon. Gilbey, Sir Walter, Bart., Elsenham Hall, Elsenham. GiLBEY, Alfred, Wooburn House, Wooburn Green, Berks. Gilbey, A. N., Cookham, Berks. Gilbev, Guy, Elsenham Hall, Elsenham. (Two copies.) Gilbey, H. W., 28, Seymour Street, W. Gilbey, Newman, Mark Hall, Harlow. Gilbey, W. Crosbie, The Lea, Denham, Uxbridge. Gilbey, Miss Emily, Elsenham Hall, Essex. Giles, Arthur B., 47, Albemarle Street, W. Goddard, T. F., 9, Great St. Helen's, E.C. Gold, Arthur, Fairfield, Birchanger, Bishop Stortford. Gold, Chas., Junior, Westfield House, Bishop Stortford. Gold, Gerald, The Limes, Birchanger, Bishop Stortford. Gold, Philip, The Limes, Birchanger, Bishop Stortford. GoRHAM, A., Devonshire Club, Devonshire Square, E.C. Gould, G. W., Chigwell Lodge, Chigwell. Gray, O. H., Ingatestone. Green, C. E., The Rectory, Loughton. (Six copies.) Green, Fredk., Hainault Lodge, Hainault, Chigwell Row. Grubb, R. T., Harlow. xiv. List of Subscribers. Harding-Newman, T., i, Threadneedle Street, E.G. Hart, G. E., Canes, near Harlow. Hart, F. G., Hartland Road, Epping. Helme, Edward T., Warley Side, Brentwood. (Two copies.) Hill, Reginald D., Holfield Grange, Coggeshall. Hine, D., 5, St. Andrew's Place, Regent's Park, N.W. Hornby, Col. J. F., Stock, Ingatestone. Howard, A. G., Holmbury, Woodford Green. Hull, T. R., Blackmore Priory, Ingatestone, Essex. Jackson," N., Sandon Lodge, near Chelmsford. Johnston, R. E., Terlings, Harlow. JoLY, Chas., 13, Place St. Martin, Caen, France. Jones, H. E., Marden Ash, Ongar, Essex. (Three copies.) Kemble, H. p.. Great Claydons, East Hanningfield. Kemble, Thos., Runwell Hall, Wickford. Kinglake, S., Little Hormead, Buntingford. Lee, H. W., Woodford Lodge, Woodford. Lee, p. S., Holmleigh, Woodford. LocKwooD, Lt.-Col. A. R. M., M.P., Bishop's Hall, Romford. LocKwooD, Robert, Dummer House, Basingstoke. LoYD, Fredk. E., Amwell Grove, Ware. Marsh, W. S. Chisenhale, Gaynes Park, Epping. Marshall, W. T., Hambleton Hall, Oakham. Melles, J. W., Sewardstone Lodge, Sewardstone, Chingford. Michell, Hy. B., Eastbury, Romford. Motion, Andrew R., Faulkbourn Hall, Witham. McIntosh, Mrs., Havering Park, Havering-atte-Bower. Neave, Mrs. Sheffield, Mill Green Park, Ingatestone. Newman, E. A,, 11 and 12, Great Tower Street, E.C. Newton, C. S., Catmore Cottage, Oakham. Nicholson, Wm., Woodford Green, Essex. Pelly, a. D., Buckhurst Hill. Pelly, Edmund, Newlands, Ware, Herts. Pelly, H. Cecil, Shortacres, Loughton. Pelly, John G., Epping. List of Subscribers. xv. Petre, Lord, Thorndon Hall, Brentwood. (Two copies.) PiGOTT, Capt. Welleslev, Pilgrim's House, Brentwood. Price, Howel, J. J., Greensted Hall, Ongar. PuLTENEY, Miss JuDiTH, Hargrave, Stansted. Qu.\RE, Ernest, Matching Green, Harlow. R.'MNXOCK, Mrs., Waltons, Ashdon, Saffron Walden. Reid, Mrs. Percy, Peering Bury, Kelvedon. Ridley, C. E., The Elms, Chelmsford. Roffey, W. T., Manor House, Writtle, Chelmsford. RooKwooD, Lord, Down Hall, Harlow. Routledge, L. a., 42, Chester Terrace, Regent's Park. Sands, John, Dagnam Priory, Noakhill, Romford. Savill, Harry, Clergy House, Epping. Sewell, Geo., Hartland Road, Epping. Sewell, Wm. H., Epping Place, Epping. SiMONDS, Tom, Forest Drive, West Leytonstone. Smith, Sir Charles C, Bart., Suttons, Romford. Smith, D. Cunliffe, Suttons, Romford. Smith, Wm., The Links, Bishop Stortford. Steele, A. R., Northbrooks, Harlow. Suart, Alfred, 23, Kensington Gore, S.W. Swire, J., 10, Kensington Court, W. Tabor, James, New Hall, Sutton, Rochford. Tilling, Richard S., North Lodge, Peckham Road, S.E. Tosetti, AL, Ashdene, Woodford Green. Townsend, Captain, Berwick Place, Hatfield Peverel, Witham. Tufnell, W. M., Hatfield Place, Witham. Usborne, Thos., M.P., Writtle, Chelmsford. Warwick, Countess of, Easton Lodge, Dunmow. (Six copies.) Waterhouse, J. C, Collar House, Prestbury, Cheshire. White, Tyndale, Stondon Place, Brentwood. (Two copies.) WiGRAM, John, South Collingham, Newark. Wood, Col. Geo. W., Nithsdale, Ingatestone. Yerbl'RGH, H. Beauchamp, Frampton, Epping. NEWMARKET & THURLOW THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. CHAPTER I. The Essex Hunt Country. Though the Hunt Country of which we are about to attempt a description extends to the eastern Hmits of Lon- don, the places of meeting are not all easy of access from the metropolis, as the country is but little intersected by railways. This points to a sad lack of prosperity, but it cannot be denied that it greatly increases the attractions of the country from a sporting point of view. The two main lines of the Great Eastern Railway Company, without penetrating far into these happy hunting grounds, run along their borders for a considerable dis- tance, and a rough general idea of the situation of the country may be given by reference to these lines. Any map of the Great Eastern Railway shows that the Com- pany has two main lines from London, the one running I 2 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. through Brentwood, Chelmsford and Colchester ; the other through Harlow, Bishop Stortford and Cambridge ; and that a branch line runs from Bishop Stortford by Dunmow to Witham, between Chelmsford and Colchester. These lines enclose a large tract of country, into which no railway has penetrated beyond the metropolitan suburbs, except the line from London through Loughton and Epping to Ongar. Over a portion of the tract of country enclosed by the two main lines and the Dunmow branch, the Essex Hounds hunt on three days in the week. They devote one day in the week to the country north of Dunmow. Through the courtesy of the Great Eastern Railway officials, we are able to give the dates of the opening of the various lines with which we are concerned. This is a matter of interest in tracing the history of hunting in the county of Essex. The main lines from London to Chelmsford and to Cambridge have been working for about half a century, the former having been opened in 1843, ^he latter in 1845. The line from London to Loughton was opened in 1856, and was extended through Epping to Ongar in 1865. The Dunmow branch line was opened in 1869. The fox-hunting countries which bound the Essex THE ESSEX HUNT COUNTRY. 3 are as follows : — The Essex Union on the south, the East Essex on the east, the Puckeridge on the west, and the Newmarket and Thurlow on the north. The lines of boundary, as agreed for many years past, are marked on an admirable hunting map issued by Mr. A. H. Swiss, of Fore Street, Devonport. The southern boundary, as shown on this map, follows the High Road (from which the rail- way is never far distant) from Ilford to Chelmsford, but we believe it is now agreed that, for the future, the line is to be the boundary between the two countries. From the county town the boundary runs northward, marching with the East Essex country, along the river Chelmer, to a point between Felstead and Dunmow. Continuingf to march with the East Essex we reach our northernmost point near Haverhill. Thence we bear company with the Newmarket and Thurlow across to near the village of Ashdon, where we meet the Puckeridge country and go with it just west of Radwinter and considerably west of Thaxted in an irregular line to the River Stort, just below Bishop .Stort- ford. Takeley Forest, east of Bishop Stortford, has for very many years been neutral ground with the Essex antl the Puckeridge, and the origin of this neutral covert is fully explained in a subsequent chapter. After joining the Stort, the boundary follows that river to Sawbridgeworth ; tlience 4 T?IF, ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. it runs along the railway to Roydon, and on down the River Lea to the suburbs of London about Chingford. According to present arrangements, the boundaries of the Essex, East Essex and Essex Union countries, meet at Chelmsford, but we learn from Mr. Thomas Kemble, of Runwell Hall, that Moulsham Thrift Wood, a covert of 150 acres, near Galley wood Racecourse in the Essex Union country, was regarded as a neutral covert every other month during the masterships of Mr. Conyers and Mr. Henley Greaves ; but the covert has not for many years past been drawn by the Essex hounds, and it has now disappeared, all but about twenty acres close to the town of Chelmsford. In Mr. Conyers's time the Essex Hunt country extended farther east than at present, and included the coverts of Panfield Hall, near Braintree ; Grand Courts, near P'elstead and Lion Hall, at Great Leighs. The great distance from Copt Hall to these coverts rendered it difficult for Mr. Conyers to hunt them. He consented that Mr. Charles Newman, the master of the East Essex, should hunt Panfield Hall, Lion Hall, and other coverts neutrally with the Essex, but a suggestion put forward by Mr. Richard Marriott in 1831, that Grand Courts and other coverts should be neutralised also, was emphatically declined by Mr. Conyers. Through THE ESSEX HUNT COUNTRY. 5 the kindness of Mr. H. R. G. Marriott we have been favoured with a copy of the animated correspondence which passed on the subject between his father and the irascible squire of Copt Hall ; it will be found in the appendix to this book. Ultimately Mr. Conyers gave up drawing the neutral coverts, and they became, and now are, exclusively those of the East Essex. Mr. H. R. G. ■Marriott remembers that Mr. Henley Greaves was very an.xious to lend his father the country between Dunmow and Shalford ; but the Hunt Committee would not permit it. l\Ir. Marriott remarks that, in his opinion, the Com- mittee were quite right; though, as the East Essex kennels were two miles only from Foxes Wood, and three from Bo.xted, a slice of the Esse.x country was greatly coveted. The Essex country is a large one, measuring nearly forty miles in length on the map, and it has usually been hunted from inconveniently placed kennels. In later chapters we describe how the hounds were at one time kept near Brentwood, and for many years at Copt Hall, near Epping. Afterwards they were established in a more central position near Ongar, but before long a change of management led to their removal, about forty years ago, to the present kennels at Harlow. The situation of Harlow is too near to the border of the country to make it quite a 6 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. convenient site ; but it has the advantage of railway com- munication, through Stortford, with the north country. Amonsfst strangfers to Esse.x it is a common behef that the whole of the county is a dead level. As a matter of fact, however, all the Essex Hunt country is of a more or less undulating character, while some portions of it are positively hilly ; when the late Mr. W. H. Mackenzie ran the Rocket Coach from London to Colchester, nothing surprised his passengers more than the give-and- take nature of the road. The little River Rodin^, risingr not far from Easton Park, flows southward with many turns through the entire length of the country. Though a mean-looking stream, it gains the respect of the foxhunter by its unjumpable character (perhaps it has never been successfully challenged save by the late Mr. Sheffield Neave), and by its association with the Rodings, or Roothings — the most celebrated area of the Essex Hunt. The country does not, perhaps, give much opportunity for water-jumping. There are, however, several small streams whose rotten banks and soft beds have brousht o grief to many incautious riders. Amongst these obstacles are the Easter and Roxwell brooks, which unite and fall into the Chelmer; the Pincey, or Down Hall brook, THE ESSEX HUNT COUNTRY. 7 and the Canons brook, both tributaries of the Stort. The Cripsey brook flows by North Weald and Moreton to join the Roding near Ongar, and in the Epping country we find the Cobbins brook, a tributary of the Lea. Through the southern parts of the country the Dagenham and W^eald brooks flow on their way to the Thames. The country seats which have been most associated with the Essex Hounds are Copt Hall, Easton Lodge, Hallingbury Place, Mark Hall, and Down Hall ; also Bishop's Hall, Forest Hall, Skreens and Langleys. In these houses have resided many of the best preservers of foxes and supporters and followers of the hounds during the last hundred years. Copt Hall, near Epping, was the residence of Mr. Henry John Conyers, possibly the most famous Master of " The Essex." The estate was purchased by his great- grandfather early in the last century. At the time of the purchase the old hall (where James H. invited himself to dinner after stag-hunting in the Roothings) was falling into decay, and its stately gallery had been blown down. As the structure was past repair it was demolished and the present Hall was erected. The estate was held in succession by the purchaser's son and grandson, both named John, and on the death of the latter, in the year 1 818, it passed to his son, Mr. Henry John Conyers, who THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. kept hounds there until his death in 1853, when the con- nection of Copt Hall with the pack came to an end. Uurino; the lifetime of Mr. Conyers, sen., father of Mr. Henry John Conyers, the master of the Essex, Copt Hall was the subject of a burglary committed in the year 1775. The coachman Chapman was in league with the robbers, of whom the chief was one Lambert Reading, and they were by him given all necessary information. The band travelled from London by hackney coach, effected the robbery, and, with their booty, hurried back to London with all speed. The sound of a hackney coach rattling through Stratford in the dead of night aroused the sus- picion of a certain wakeful magistrate, who had the fore- thought to take the number, and on hearing of the burglary at Copt Hall, communicated with Mr. Fielding, a neigh- bouring J. P. The information thus given led to the de- tection of the gang, their trial and subsequent execution at Chelmsford — Chapman and his wife suffering with them. Easton Lodge, near Dunmow, has a brilliant hunting record. The second Viscount Maynard, who died in 1824, when upwards of seventy years of age, was described by a Master of the Essex Hounds, the famous Colonel John Cook, as "a strict preserver of foxes, and one of the best of men." When Col. Cook was unable to keep on the THE ESSEX HUNT COUNTRY. 9 hounds his Lordship joined with his neighbour, Mr. John Archer Houblon, in purchasing the pack, and his nephew, the third and last Viscount, kennelled Mr. Conyers's hounds at P^aston, when they hunted the north country, until the Squire's unbridled language e.xhausted his Lordship's patience. The third Viscount's eldest son, the Hon. Charles Henry Maynard, of the Blues (afterwards Colonel Maynard), was a first-rate athlete and horseman. In 1839, at the age of five-and-twenty, he was champion knight in the Eglinton Tournament, and his praises were sung by Mr. Earle,' the Moreton parson, in his description of a great day with the Essex stag-hounds : — Where's he of the Blues, Such a devil to bruise, His nerves must be doubtless uncommonly strong; The 3'oung lord of Easton, Whatever queer beast on, Ne'er stops at his fences, but scurries along. He's a quicksilver clown. Up as soon as he's down, With Ducrow in his antics he'd cope, Sir. He can change his smallclothes On his horse as he goes, And could shave if but " well off for soap. Sir." ' This was prolwbly the same Mr. Earle who was one of the wits when the Royal Buckhouncls and .Mr. dc Burgh's Staghounds used to pay their annual visit to Aylesbury. lO THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. Easton Lodge is now the property of Colonel Maynard's daughter, the Countess of Warwick. The Essex Hunt has good reason for pride in her Ladyship's constant attach- ment to the sport afforded by her native county. In the hunting held her popularity is as unbounded as elsewhere, and much satisfaction is felt that the Earl and Countess have not entirely left Easton Lodge, though necessarily they are often at Warwick Castle, where her Ladyship has most kindly been photographed for the frontispiece of this book. Hallingbury Place, near Bishop Stortford, is the seat of the Houblon family, which gave the Bank of England its first Governor, and from one of whose daughters Lord Palmerston was descended. Two members of the family, father and son, each named John Archer Houblon, lived here in succession from about the beginning of the present century until 1891. The father rendered important service to the Essex Hounds by uniting with Lord Maynard in the purchase of Colonel Cook's pack. He was also for a time Master of the Puckeridge. He died in 1831 and was succeeded by his son, who was a firm friend to foxhunting during his sixty years' tenure of the property. For many years during the latter part of his life he presided at the Annual Meetings of THE ESSEX HUNT COUNTRY. ' I I the Hunt, and died in 1891, universally respected, beloved and revered ; the property then passed to his nephew, Lieut.-Col. George Bramston Archer, who has taken the name of Archer-Houblon. Mark Hall, near Harlow, is rich in sporting associa- tions. In the latter part of the last century, it was the seat of Colonel Montague Burgoyne, upon whose invitation Mr. Thomas William Coke, afterwards Earl of Leicester (not to be confounded with Colonel John Cook already referred to) e.xtended his country into Essex. After the marriage of Colonel Burgoyne's two daughters, the property was put up to auction in the year 18 19 and purchased by Mr. Richard Arkwright for his son Joseph, who had, in the previous year, married a daughter of Sir Robert Wigram. Joseph was one of a family of eleven. Their grandfather, by the invention of the "spinning frame," and the erection of mills for its use, had founded the great cotton industry of Lancashire, and their father had carried on the family concerns with such success as to gain the reputation of being the " Richest Commoner in England." The Revd. Joseph Arkwright lived at Mark Hall until his death in 1864, after seven seasons' mastership of the Essex Hounds. His son, the late Mr. Loftus Arkwright, who succeeded him in his estates and in the mastership, 12 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. lived at Parndon Hall, Mark Hall being occupied by the ladies of the family. Details of the intimate connection of the Arkwright family with the P2ssex Hounds are given in later chapters ; while Mark Hall is at present let to Mr. Newman Gilbey — a tenant who well maintains the sporting associations of the house. Down Hall, between Harlow and Hatfield Broad Oak, has for more than a century been the seat of the .Selwin family. In former times foxhunting was not favoured here, but the present owner (now Lord Rookwood)' brought about a change in his father's views. No man is more devoted to foxhunting than Lord Rookwood, who, as Sir Henry Selwin Ibbetson, had a most successful seven years' mastership of the Essex. At Bishop's Hall, Lambourne, the preservation of foxes has for many years past been looked after by the late General Mark Wood, though he cared more for racing than for hunting, and by his son (he has resumed the old family name and is now known as Colonel Mark Lockwood) who enlivens the hunting field, as he does the House of ' When it was known that a peerage had been offered to Sir Henry Selwin- Ibbetson, a story — ben trovato, if not vera — was current at the time with reference to the title he would take. A friend, after offering his congratulations, is reported to have said : " I suppose, Ibbetson, you will become Lord Harlow?" "What," replied Sir Henry, "and be called 'Clarissa' all my life! No, thank you." o a TIIF. ESSEX HUNT COUNTRY. 13 Commons, with his ready wit. The Colonel's younger brother, Mr. Robert Lockwood, was formerly Secretary of the Hunt, and he is warmly welcomed when he visits Essex from his present home in Hampshire. Within the Roothing district there is no large country house, but not far from its borders are Forest Hall, near Hio-h Onaar ; Skreens, near Roxwell ; and Langleys, at Great Waltham. One hundred years ago these were the seats of the Stane, Bramston, and Tufnell families, of whom the two former were connected by marriage. In Mr. Conyers's time Forest Hall belonged to the Rev. John Bram.ston, who assumed the additional surname of Stane. Though a good friend to foxhunting, he received his share of Mr. Conyers's criticisms. Once, on finding that his coverts had been drawn in his absence, Mr. Stane asked his servant, "And what did Mr. Conyers say of my coverts? " '• He said, sir," replied the man, " that they were not fit to hold a mouse." Such is the story, as nearly as it can be told here. In 1862 the estate was sold to its present owner, Mr. John Lightfoot Newall, who has considerably enlarged it by subsequent purchases. It now includes Witney Wood, Newark's Hall Wood, Paslow Hall Woods, an osier bed and the home plantations. Much gratitude is due to this gentleman from foxhunters, as through his care, 14 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. the preservation of a large head of game for his own form of sport is not allowed to clear his coverts of foxes. The Skreens Estate, which includes the most im- portant coverts on the southern borders of the Roothing district, has remained the property of the Bramston family down to the present time. The house has been occupied successively by Mr. Thomas Henry Bramston, who died in 1813 ; Mr. Thomas Gardiner Bramston (elder brother of Mr. John Bramston Stane), who died in 183 1 ; and Mr. Thomas William Bramston, who died in 1870. Each of these owners, in his time, took part in the representation of the county in Parliament, and joined in all matters of local interest, including foxhunting ; but, unfortunately, it is now many years since Skreens has been inhabited by its owner. Langleys has happily continued down to the present time to be the residence of the Tufnells, many of whom have taken as leading a position in riding to hounds as in graver pursuits ; Colonel William Nevill Tufnell is the present owner. We will next mention some of the principal coverts and other features of the Essex Hunt, taking first the southern part of the country ; next the neighbourhood of the kennels ; then the country north of Dunmow, and THE ESSEX HUNT COUNTRY. 1 5 lastly the Roothings and their neighbourhood. These districts are respectively known as the Monday, Wednes- day, Friday, and Saturday countries, from the days of the week on which they are now usually hunted. The Monday country extends round Epping, and southwards from the road throuirh that town to Ongar and Chelmsford. Epping Forest, though it holds foxes, is hopeless for foxhounds, from the abundance of earths. Beyond Epping, a town long associated with foxhunting, we reach a better country. Hounds were kennelled in very early times in its neighbourhood, and seventy years ago it was described as " the grand depot where most of the gentlemen who live at a distance keep their hunters." \\'ithin no areat distance of the town we come to the extensive woods of Ongar Park, belonging chiefly to Major George Capel Cure ; Gaynes Park Wood, and Rough Tallies, the property of Mr. Chisenhale Marsh. These are the largest coverts of the Hunt, ex- cept the Blackmore High woods. These last are chiefly the property of Lord Petre, and they, with Thoby Wood, which is almost part of the High Woods, were neutral with the Essex Union when Lord Petre hunted that country in Mr. Conyers's time. In addition to these large woodlands, the Monday country is well provided with l6 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. smaller coverts. Starting from the point to which suburban London has gradually advanced, we soon arrive at Clay- bury, near Woodford. Here now stands a huge lunatic asylum, but it is not many years since the shrubberies were successfully drawn for a fox, whilst further south hounds still occasionally run into the neighbourhood of Barking Side and Romford. Amongst coverts now drawn, those nearest to London include Lough ton Shaws, belonging to the Rev. J. W. Maitland ; the woods of Mr. Ernest J. Wythes, the present owner of Copt Hall ; Colonel Mark Lockwood's coverts round Bishop's Hall, Abridge ; and the coverts belonging to Mrs. Mcintosh and Mrs. Pemberton Barnes, at Havering. Excellent sport has been afforded from Mrs. Mcintosh's gorse-plantation, and a similar covert has been planted at Bishop's Hall by Colonel Lockwood. On the northern side of the Roding, near Gaynes Park, are the Hill Hall coverts of Sir William Bowyer Smijth, including Beachett Wood, Barbers and Shalesmore, and in the same neighbourhood are the coverts belonging to Sir Charles Cunliffe Smith, of Suttons. Returning to the southern side of the Roding, and turnine eastward to the district between Ongar and Brentwood, we find at Navestock the coverts of Lord Carlingford. Curtis Mill Green is a considerable covert THE ESSEX HUNT COUNTRY. 1 7 near the Roding, opposite Suttons. It is a curious fact that while the freehold of this covert belongs to Lord Carlinyford, the timber belonfjs to Sir Charles Cunliffe Smith. In the same district are the Dagnam coverts of Sir Thomas Neave ; the Kelvedon Hall coverts of Mr. Wright, and the Great Myless coverts of the Fane family, including the queerly named Menagerie Wood. Some parts of the Monday country have acquired an unenviable notoriety for their lack of foxes, but in other parts foxes are well preserved and most excellent sport is shown. The country is not an easy one to ride over. Many of the fields are enclosed by high banks, often rotten, and there are many cavernous ditches, particularly in the neighbourhood of Curtis Mill Green. There is but little wire fencinof in the district, though it has its share of pasture land. We next take the W^ednesday country, again begin- ning on the London side, and proceeding towards the east and north. Between Waltham Abbey and Epping Forest are the Warlies coverts of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, of which Scatter Bushes is the most important ; also Obelisk Wood, rented by Sir Fowell from the representatives of the late Captain Tanzia Savary, and the Beech flill Park coverts 1 8 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. of Mr. A. J. Edwards; while Galley Hills, and other coverts belonging to Mr. Beale Colvin, who has been master of the East Essex and Es.sex and Suffolk Hounds, are in the same neighbourhood. Further north lie Tatde Bushes and Roydon Park. The last was an important covert in olden days, till about the time of the Crimean War, when the greater part of it was grubbed up. As we approach Harlow from Epping, after leaving the Lower Forest, we have on our right Weald Coppice, the property of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and Canes Wood, a covert of less importance than formerly. We now come to the property of Mr. Loftus Ark- wright, whose coverts include Harlow Park, Latton Park, Ware Hatches, Vicarage Wood, Mark Hall Wood, Gravel Pit "Wood, and Barnsleys. In the same neighbourhood, St. Thomas's Hospital owns Burnett Wood ; part of the Parndon Woods, including Hospital Wood, and part of Pinnacles. The remainder of the Parndon Woods is the property of Mr. Todhunter ; the remainder of Pinnacles, the Netteswell Plantation and Bays Grove, belong to Mr. Charles Phelips. Passing to the east of Harlow, we come to the Moor Hall coverts of Captain Ethelstan ; these include Matching Park and Heathen Wood. Looking further north-eastward THE ESSEX HUNT COUNTRY. TQ we find the coverts belongintr to Down Hall, the seat of Lord Rookwood. He also owns Man Wood, which is always the covert first drawMi on the opening day when the hounds meet at Matching Green. To the north of Down Hall lies the country round Hatfield Heath and Hatfield Broad Oak, where the prin- cipal coverts are those of Lord Roden, now rented by Mr. T. J. Mann of Hyde Hall, Mr. Alan Lowndes at Bar- rington Hall ; and the neutral country of Takeley Forest, belonofine to Colonel Archer Houblon. Between Man Wood and Hatfield Broad Oak lies the famous covert Row Wood, which is second to none in the annals of the Hunt. This brings us to the northern limits of the W'ednes- day country. Returning to the kennels and looking south- east towards Ong-ar, we face a district known as " The Lavers," containing many good coverts, including Brick- kilns (not far from Man Wood), Envilles, Norwood and Belgium Springs. Between the Lavers and Ongar the principal coverts are those of Major George Capel Cure, of Blake Hall, whose estate includes Bobbingworth Hall Wood and Dooly Wood, as well as Ongar Park Wood in the Monday country. The land in the Wednesday country is chiefly arable, except in the Nazing district, where there is a good deal of 20 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. pasture, unfortunately accompanied by wire fencing. The sport afforded varies greatly, but as a rule much good-will towards hunting is shown in this district. The Friday country, to which the hounds and horses are taken by train, contains some excellent coverts, includ- ing Dunmow High Woods, Hoglands, Avesey, The Lays, The Maze, Great and Little Bendysh — all belonging to Lady Warwick — Lubberhedges (purchased by the late Mr. Loftus Arkwright about 1870, and now the property of his son), The Stick Covert at Thaxted, established by Mr. C. E. Green ; Bigods, Ridley's Springs, Horeham Hall, West Wood, Hempstead Wood, belonging to Mr. Almack, of Long Melford ; Foxes' Wood and Thaxted Lodge Planta- tion, belonging to Guy's Hospital ; Whitehouse Springs, belonging to the Earl of Essex ; the Ash Plant, the Porters Hall Coverts and Spains, the last being neutral with the East Essex. This fine, wild country is well worth the railway journey. Its central point is Thaxted, distinguished by the finest church in Essex. The coming of the hounds breaks the monotony of life in these remote districts, and the welcome they receive drew from a former servant of the Hunt the exclamation : " Eh, but it's a Christian country, the oother side o' Dunmow. You may go where you like. THE ESSEX HUNT COUNTRY. 2 1 you may have what you like, and you may say what you Hke ! " The arrangements for hunting this distant part of the country have varied at different periods. Colonel Cook used to establish himself with his hounds at Dunmow three or four times each season for a week or ten days at a time. Mr. Conyers hunted the country from Copt Hall without keeping' his hounds out for more than one night at most, but this involved very severe road work. Mr. Henley Greaves carried his hounds in a van, and the same method was adopted by Mr. Joseph Arkwright and his son until the opening of the railway. Since then the horses and hounds have been carried by train between Harlow and Dunmow or Saffron Walden. We now come to the Saturday country, extending eastwards from the Wednesday country to the boundary of the East Essex. This includes the district intersected by the river Roding in its course from the Friday country to Ongar, and known as "The Rodings " or "The Roothings." The Hatfield and Laver districts, hunted on Wednes- days, form the western boundary of the Roothings. On their northern side are the Canfields ; on the south the Willingales, Forest Hall and Skreens ; and on the east the 22 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. Easters and the districts of Roxwell, the Chignalls and Pleshey, all included in the Saturday country. The Roothings stand second only to the Holderness in Yorkshire, amongst the plough countries of England. The district extends over about 12,000 acres, distributed amongst the eight parishes of High Roding, Aythorpe Roding, White Roding (with the hamlet of Morell Roding), Leaden Roding, Margaret Roding, Abbess Roding, Beauchamp Rodincr, and Berners Rodin^. In their centre, at Leaden Roding, stands the King William Inn, the half-way house on the road from Ongar to Dunmow. Near here is Leaden Wood, the most important covert of the district, purchased from Lord Dacre by the late Mr. Loftus Arkwright, and now the property of his son. North of Leaden Wood lies Lords Wood, and at a greater distance we come to Dobbs Wood, the property of Mr. F. J. Matthews ; High Roding Bury, and High Roding Springs. Not very far from these, on the borders of the district, lie Poplars and Broomshawbury. To the south of the district are Margaret Roding Wood, Berners Wood, and Skreens Wood, the two latter belonging to the Bramston family. Arthur Young in his "General Survey of the Agricul- ture of the County of Essex," published in 1807, describes THE ESSEX HUNT COUNTRY. 23 the soil of the RoothinQS, Easters and Lavers, and of much of the country north of Dunmow, as " a strong, wet, heavy, reddish or brown loam upon a whitish clay marl bottom ; poaching with rain ; adhesive ; yields very little without hollow draining, and good crops not without manure and careful management." He describes the poorest land in the district as a thin wet loam of a rather lig;ht brown colour locally known as red land. No one who has ridden over the Roothings in wet weather will dispute the description of the land as " heavy." Ordinary wet weather makes the ploughs very deep ; but after a long continued downpour they appear to become firmer, though there is plenty of surface water and mud. Little can be grown in this district but vvheat, and this crop often fails to meet the cost of cultivation and transport to distant railway stations along the ill-kept roads. The greater prosperity and population of these parishes in former days is shown by the size of the ancient churches, whose massive towers dignify the landscape. Many of these Roothing churches are of sufficient size to contain the whole present population of their respective parishes. Provision for their maintenance is a matter of great diffi- culty, on which account the assistance of hunting men is from time to time invited. The fields, usually of great size, 24 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. are divided by dry ditches, wide and deep, so deep, indeed, that should a horse sHp to the bottom, his rider, though retaining his seat, is sometimes invisible from a short distance, and a horse from the plough is needed to ex- tricate the engulfed hunter. Seventy years ago, when the country was better worth the farmer's care, these ditches were described by Colonel John Cook as " rather wide but not blind." In the present day they are often sufficiently overgrown to bring disaster to horses and riders, who would sail away in safety across a country intersected with upstanding fences. In one re- spect, however, the country has become easier to ride over. In former times it was customary to cut a small trench, parallel to the big ditch and about a yard from it, for the purpose of cutting the roots of the under- growth, and preventing them from spreading into the fields. It is now more than thirty years since these " root ditches " were in general use, but traces of them may still be found in the district. Mr. C. E. Ridley, of Chelmsford, states he cannot discover that any of these " root ditches " have been cut within the last eighty years. It is easy to understand the statement of the late General Mark Wood that the necessity of negotiating "root ditches " in addition to the main ditch made the country THE ESSEX HUNT COUNTRY. 25 "double trappy." Often there was little time for delibera- tion, as the fields were surrounded by strips of fallow covered with rank herbage which aided hounds in picking up the scent and they would fiy over a field, if at a loss, certain of the help they would get on the other side. Strips of fallow of this kind are still to be seen near Pleshey, but they have almost entirely disappeared in the Roothings. Lord Rookwood considers their disappear- ance the most important change, from a hunting point of view, which the country has undergone within his recollection. Another noticeable change is due to the steam plough, introduced into the Pleshey country more than thirty years ago by those energetic farmers, the Messrs. Christie, and now largely used in the Roothings also. Where this mode of cultivation is adopted, the going is deeper than ever. Colonel Cook .says that in his day scent in the Roothings was invariably good after Christmas. The masters and huntsmen of more recent times have not been so favoured. Scent is as variable here as elsewhere, and in defiance of tradition, a cutting east wind is often more favourable to sport than "a southerly wind and a cloudy sky." The foxes of the Roothings have long enjoyed a high reputation. Formerly there were no earths in the district. 26 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. and even now it is said that in some of the big woods a vixen will litter down in the stump of a tree, though they seem to prefer an earth in a bank if possible. The fact that the foxes were bred above ground was said to increase their stoutness. Colonel Cook says of them : " I believe there never was an instance of an old wild Roothing fox having been killed with a hunting scent ; if you do not go away close at him at the very best pace, he never will be caught, and if you come to a check with a hunting scent, it is twenty to one he beats you. One thing ought always to be attended to, which is, when your fox is gone, to be as quick in getting your hounds after him as possible." The Saturday country includes a large area outside the Roothing district. Directly north of the Roothings are the Canfields, where the chief coverts are Canfield Thrift and Canfield Hart, both of these coverts belonging to Sir Spencer Maryon Wilson. A prominent landmark of the district is Canfield Mount, the site of an ancient Castle, where many a fox has taken refuge from hounds. East of the Mount, on the far side of High Roding Street, and usually drawn from that fixture, is the extensive covert of Garnetts, the property of Sir Brydges Henniker. South- eastward from Garnetts we come to the site of the once famous covert of " Old Park," which Colonel John Cook THE ESSEX HUNT COUNTRY. 2"] considered to be the best in the country. The greater part of this covert was stulibcd up in the time of the Rev. Joseph Arkwright, l^ut good runs were obtained from what was left of it for several years after his death. Old Park stood midway between Garnetts and Pleshey, where hounds meet beside ancient earthworks of vast extent, which mark the site of the Casde of the High Constables of England. At Pleshey hunting (probably stag-hunting) was a pastime five centures ago, when the Casde was inhabited by the Duke of Gloucester, son of King Edward the Third. F"roissart tells how the Duke's nephew. King Richard the Second, " in maner as goyng a huntyng rode from Havering of Bour a xx myle from London in Essex, and within xx myle of Plasshey, where the duke of Gloucestre helde his house. After dyner, the Kynge departed from Haveryng with a small company, and came to Plasshey about v a clocke." On arriving at the Castle, the Kinaf invited his uncle to London, but the invitation, like the preparations for hunting, was part of a treacherous plot, which ended in the capture and murder of the Duke. In "King Richard the Second" Shakespeare intro- duces the Duke's widow, who sends an invitation to her brother to visit her at " Plashy." This historic estate has been held for more than a century by the Tufnell family. 28 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. The country between Pleshey and Chelmsford is well supplied with fox-coverts, and the interests of the hunt are well cared for by the Messrs. Christie and Marriage. In the parish of Great Waltham there are four im- portant coverts, known as Sparrowhawks, Israels, Fitz- Johns and The Bushetts, all belonging to Colonel Nevill Tufnell, of Langleys. To these, Mr. C. E. Ridley — one of a family long known in Essex as keen foxhunters — has added a new gorse at Hartford End, which he hopes to make the most certain find in the whole of the Hunt. The other principal coverts in the neighbourhood of Chelmsford are Bush Wood and Boynton Hall Wood, both the property of Lord Petre ; and College Wood, the pro- perty of Mr. Edward Rosling. The Friday and Saturday countries have shared largely in the agricultural depression of recent years, as appears from the able report of Mr. Hunter Pringle, published last year by the Royal Commission on Agri- culture. However, it is some consolation to find that the majority of the Scottish farmers who have come into the county in the last ten years, are holding their own, and there are fewer unoccupied farms than in 1886, whilst com- plaints against sportsmen are confined to certain shooting tenants, and no feeling is reported against foxhunting. CHAPTER II. Early Foxhunting in Essex — Sir William Rowley — Mr. Canning — The "Invincibles" — The "Talents" Hunt — Mr. John Archer — Mr. Thomas William Coke — Messrs. Harding and Charles Newman — Mr. Tufnell's Hounds — The Woodford Foxhounds — The Brothers Rounding— Mr. Conyers's First Period of Mastership. Essex is a good sporting county ; it is, and probably has been for a long period of time, religiously hunted from end to end ; but, unfortunately for its foxhunting history, no great family or historic pack has been kept withm its borders. Packs like the Belvoir and Cottesmore in the Midlands, Lord Yarborough's in Lincolnshire, and others which might be mentioned, have not only made history for themselves, but have been the cause of records being kept of sundry less notable establishments hunting in 30 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. the surrounding neighbourhood. In Essex, however, the beginning of foxhunting must be sought for, not in the history of some famous family pack, but in the doings of a number of unpretentious establishments. Some of them were certainly maintained by different landowners, while others were kept by farmers ; and some, again, were doubt- less trencher fed. Roughly speaking, little or nothing is known of fox- hunting in Essex till about 1785 ; but, as a sport, it had then celebrated its centenary — and something more besides — and we may not suppose that during this period Essex had not known the music of horn and hound. An important pack of foxhounds in early times was that of Sir William Rowley, who hunted the Eastern part of our county, from outlying kennels at Witham, though his chief kennels (re- built in 1794) were at Tendring Hall, Suffolk. The illus- trated edition of Beckford's " Thoughts upon Hunting," published in 1796, contains a picturesque view of Sir W. Rowley's kennels, with a ground plan and detailed de- scription — the latter stating that the hunt had been estab- lished about seven years (it was founded in 1777), and that with regard to the excellence of the hounds, the regulation and management of the pack, which consisted of thirty-six couples (the original pack was, it is said, bought from the SIR WILLIAM ROWLEY MR. CANNING. 3 I Duke of York), it was inferior to none of similar magni- tude in the United Kingdom. Lady Rowley, too, fre- quently enjoyed with her husband the sports of the field, and convinced the world that the most delicate habits of thinking- and acting were not incompatible with being charmed with the music of hounds, the delights of the chase, and the health -giving exercise of equestrian diver- sion. The sport shown by the pack was long remem- bered, and when a particularly good run took place near Elmstead, in 1814, it was described in the Sporting Maga- zine as "one of the best runs since the days of Sir William Rowley." A new kennel was built on a somewhat grand scale at Tendring Hall in 1794, and three years later the hounds were given up, the sale by auction taking place in December, 1797; but Sir William survived until 1832, when he died at the age of seventy-three. Among other packs hunting Essex towards the close of the last century, but of which little is known beyond their names, may be mentioned Mr. Canning's, which, after apparently hunting in a casual sort of manner for some years, at last took over the Witham Kennels, previously occupied by Sir William Rowley, and hunted a tract of country between the areas covered by that gentleman, 32 THE ESSEX FOX HOUNDS. Mr. Coke, and the Duke of Grafton. Mr. Canning, in fact, had slices of country lent or made over by each of the above masters. Then Mr. Tufnell's hounds, which enjoyed excellent sport during the first year of the century, are said never to have done so well in any former season. There were never fewer than fifty sportsmen out, and they were sufficiently popular to be invited by General Egerton to meet at Danbury, on which occasion they ran for more than three hours, and the fox and hounds were nearly five miles ahead of the field : so at least wrote the hunting correspondent of the period. A pack of what were probably harriers, and were certainly not Mr. Harding Newman's, used to hunt bag-foxes in the neighbourhood of Rochford, and we find records of the Woodford foxhounds prior to the time of the brothers Rounding, while mention is made of sundry other packs which amply fulfilled the object of showing sport, though failing to make their mark in the foxhunting history of ' This Duke of Grafton hunted a portion of Suffolk, Tom Rose, his famous huntsman, going backwards and forwards from Suffolk to the Grafton country. The Duke's grandfather, who also had the Grafton country, kept another pack of hounds at Croydon, Surrey, prior to 1735. On hunting mornings he used to go from London, and was so often kept waiting by the ferryman at Westminster that he conceived the project of building a bridge over the Thames there. He eventually brought in a Bill to authorise it, and the bridge was built in 1748. THE " INVINCIBLES. 33 the county of Essex. Chops and changes were numerous in the early days ; packs had no continued existence, and it was not till the dawning of the present century that foxhunting was established in Essex upon a permanent basis. To come, however, to one or two packs about which something is known, we may first refer to a couple of primitive establishments whose hounds, if slow, were sure, and generally managed to walk their fox to death. The merits of these packs are vouched for on the trustworthy authority of Colonel John Cook. They were known as the " Invincibles " and "The Talents Hunt." The " In- vincibles," or Hempstead Hounds, were kept by some farmers, and numbered about sixteen couples, including — " Invincible Tom and invincible Tovvler, Invincible Jack and invincible Jowler," who seldom missed their fox. Colonel Cook vouches for the story that these hounds ran a fox from a covert of Lord Braybrooke's, near .Saffron Walden, to within four or five miles of Bury St. Edmunds -a distance of twenty-five miles at least. The Invincibles were no respecters of bound- aries, and they caused much annoyance to Colonel Cook by disturbing the cream of the Thurlow country when he hunted it early in the present century. l)Ut he tolerantly 3 34 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. says that he could not be displeased with them, as the farmers who managed them were respectable people, fond of sport, and had as much right to hunt as he possessed. There was a similar clashing in Sussex, soon after the Duke of Richmond took over the Charlton Hunt. An old fellow named Land kept hounds on the outskirts of the Duke's country, and very often he used to trespass round it and disturb the coverts intended for the morrow's draw of the Duke's hounds. On one occasion he even ventured, after running a fox to ground, to dravij some of the coverts near Goodwood House ; and, on being remonstrated with, said to the Goodwood messenger : " Tell your master that I hunted the country before he was born, and shall continue to do so after he is dead and d — d." But he did not ! " The Talents Hunt " occupied the Dunmow country. They had a good huntsman, who rivalled the deeds of him of the Invincibles, though when became southwards, to the neighbourhood of Chelmsford, he found that a fox from Old Park (Colonel Cook's favourite covert) was not so easily caught. Long before the end of the eighteenth century the neighbourhood of Epping was occasionally hunted by a pack of foxhounds of a different character from the scratch packs of the North country. The master was Mr. John MR. JOHN ARCITKR. 35 Archer, of Coopersale House, a gentleman of landed pro- perty in Essex and Berkshire. Shortly after his death in 1800, a description of his annual visits to his estates was published. If this record may be accepted as true, the passage of Mr. Archer bore more resemblance to the "progress" of King James I., the wanderings of the eccentric Colonel Thornton (of whom more in a later chapter), or the pompous pageantry of the ancient nobles of Spain when they went to take possession of a Vice- Royalty, than the arrival of a plain county gentleman. Not even Mr. John Jorrocks would have made such an entry. The following was the order of the cavalcade : — First, the coach and six horses, with two postilions, coach- man, and three outriders ; a post-chaise and four post-horses, phaeton and four followed by two grooms, a chaise marine with four horses carrying the numerous services of plate — this last was escorted by the under-butler, who had under his command three stout fellows ; they formed a part of the household, and all were armed with blunderbusses. Next followed the hunters with their cloths of scarlet trimmed with silver, and attended by the stud-groom and huntsman ; each horse had a fox's brush tied to the front of the bridle. The rear was brought up by the pack of hounds, the whipper-in, the hack-horses, and the inferior stablemen. 36 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. In the coach went the upper servants, in the chariot the eccentric master's wife, Lady Mary Archer, n^e FitzwilHam, or, if she preferred a less confined view of the country, she accompanied Mr. Archer in the phaeton, he travehing in all weathers in that vehicle, wrapped up in a swan's-down lined coat. What extent of country Mr. Archer hunted ; when he first began to keep hounds, and where his hounds came from when they formed part of the Coopersale pageant, are matters concerning which nothing is known ; nor do we hear anything about the sport they showed in Essex. It is certainly a most extraordinary fact that a hunting establish- ment apparently so complete should lack an historian ; but inasmuch as, at any rate during the last forty years of the last century, Essex was pretty well hunted, we are tolerably safe in concluding that the reporter in question greatly magnified the operations of Mr. Archer's pack. That gentleman may have insisted upon drawing his own coverts, though they were in some other well defined hunt, but a migratory affair like this cannot be seriously regarded as one of England's hunting establishments, for we nowhere learn that Mr. Archer, like the Duke of Grafton, hunted two countries. Moreover, we are not told for what portion of the season Mr. Archer — yreat-orandfather of the late MR. THOMAS WILLIAM COKE. T^J Mr. Archcr-Houblon — hunted in Esse.x. These Coopersale visits in all probability ceased not later than 1780, as after that date the house was deserted, and nobody was permitted to reside in it until, on Mr. Archer's death, it passed into other hands. No more than about five years after the cessation of Mr. Archer's visits, a great part of the county of Essex was hunted in exceedingly good style by a well established and well maintained pack of hounds. They belonged to a no less notable person than Mr. Thomas William Coke,' after- wards created Earl of Leicester. When scarcely twenty years of age, that is to say, in 1773, he returned from travel- ling abroad, went into Oxfordshire, and joined his brother- in-law, Lord Sherborne, in the management of the hounds kept by the latter at Bradwell Grove, now part of the ' Mr. Coke was born on the 6th May, 1753, it is beHeved at Holkhani. The paternal name was formerly Roberts ; but his ancestors assumed the name of Coke upon inheriting large estates from Thomas Coke, Earl of Leicester, a descendant of the famous Sir Edward Coke. He first entered Parliament in 1776, and was elected for the last time in 1826. He was twice married ; the first time to Jane Dalton, sister of Lord Sherborne (Lord Sherborne married Coke's sister) by whom he had three daughters, and curiously enough the husband of each of the daughters was well known in the world of sport. Jane Elizabeth married Charles Ncvinson, Lord Andover, who was killed by the accidental discharge of his gun ; Ann Margaret, the second daughter, married Thomas, Viscount .Xnson, who succeeded Sir Bellingham Graham as master of the Atherstone Hounds ; while the third daughter, Eliza, married the Hon. Spencer Stanhope, a noted amateur four-horse coachman. At the age of 68, Mr. Coke married a young wife who bore him five sons. 38 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. Heythrop country. Almost immediately, however, Mr. Coke appears to have started a second pack there ; in 1775, on marrying Lord Sherborne's sister, he became sole master, and in 1778 removed the whole of his hunting establishment to his seat at Holkham, Norfolk, whence he hunted a good part of that county and a considerable portion of Suffolk. For seven years Mr. Coke hunted his Norfolk and Suffolk country, and then in 1785 he extended his territory into Essex at the invitation of Colonel Montague Burgoyne of Mark Hall, whose Whig politics, though they did not com- mend him to the county, as instanced by his being twice defeated at the poll by Mr. Archer- Houblon, no doubt con- duced to his friendship with Mr. Coke, as he was a leading member of that party. Arrangements for hunting a country at the period of which we are speaking were often carried out on somewhat primitive lines ; but we must assume that, before sending the invitation to Mr. Coke to bring his hounds into Essex, Colonel Burgoyne had consulted the landowners and farmers of the district. Colonel Burgoyne only became possessed of the Mark Hall Estate (which he purchased of Mr. William Lushington) in 1785, the year of the invitation to Mr. Coke, but he must have lived in Essex before, or it would appear somewhat MR. THOMAS WILLIAM COKE. 39 Strange that he, a new comer, should have taken such a leading part in getting the country hunted. The Colonel commanded the Loyal Essex Regiment of Fencible Cavalry, and history records that he was once tried by Court-martial on no fewer than seventeen counts, but he was acquitted at the last, as Yentrice, the prosecutor, was held to have " prevaricated." The Colonel, too, put up the Harlow Bush Rooms as drill rooms for levies made to meet an expected invasion by Bonaparte. He farmed his own land in Essex, and, like Mr. Coke, contributed to Arthur Young's Surveys of the Eastern Counties ; in 1 798 he was appointed a Yerclerer of Epping Forest. This, then, was the gentleman who was instrumental in bringing Mr. Coke's hounds into Essex. The latter's principal kennel was, of course, at Holkham, but he had another at Castle Hedingham, and eventually it became necessary for him to have a third for his Essex country. Where this kennel was is not quite clear. " The Druid " and a writer in the Sporting Magazine assert that the hounds were kennelled at Epping ; but in a life of Jones, who, after whipping in to Catch, Mr. Coke's Oxfordshire hunts- man, obtained his promotion on the migration of the pack into Norfolk, the Essex Kennel is definitely stated to have been at Harlow Bush, though no trace of any such building 40 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. can now be found there. It is not impossible that the hounds were at one time kept near Epping ; possibly in the kennels which had been used by Mr. John Archer. The locality of the kennels is indicated by ,the statement in "Scott and Sebright" (revised edition, p. 323) that "Mr. Coke's hounds hovered between Castle Hedingham, Holkham, and Epping," and in the Sporting Magazine (November, 1792, p. 102) it is said that " Mr. Coke's foxhounds are returned from Castle Hedingham to Holkham, where they remain the present month, after which they remove to Epping " ; but, as already mentioned, Harlow Bush is given as the kennel address in Jones's life. William Jones had been in Mr. Coke's service for many years. He was born at Shrivenham, Berks, and was the son of a huntsman, and to him huntino- and its concomitants were a second nature. Mr. Meynell used to say of him : " He is the best huntsman in England ; he is a chef d'osuvre," and Lord Maynard's opinion was : " Jones is a gentleman huntsman. 1 would sooner sit in his company than in the company of half the Melton Mowbray gentlemen." A writer in the Sporting Magazine, besides quoting these sayings, speaks of him as "my hero, in his elegant MR. THOMAS WILLIAM COKE. 41 attitude with his superior and engaging address, his inherent love of the sport, his pride — his just pride — in the magnifi- cent pack, his own selection, the high discipline attained, the respectful manners and admirable conduct of his two whippers-in^ (formed by his own tuition) uniting with his own scientific skill and mode of hunting." The same writer gives a spirited description of a day's sport with Mr. Coke's hounds in Essex on a day in February, with a southerly wind and a cloudy sky. The meet was at Roydon Park, then a large covert. Jones and his men were in orthodox scarlet and caps, with corduroys and boot-tops of mahogany tint, " varmint-looking after all, clean, and appearing like business." Hounds found in- stantly, and settled to their fox with a good scent. For an hour and a-half they scarcely checked. " First to Deer Park, then to Wintry Wood ; they next turned to the left over Broadley Common, not touching the Forest, running- direct to Latton, and crossing the high road they went through Harlow Park," leaving Harlow just on the left, and kept on to Matching Park. Here "that splendid country burst upon the view, leading to Man Wood, which was left ' The first whip was John Wilkinson, who afterwards became huntsman to Sir William Rowley ; the second was John Tyler, who took office as a game- keeper after Mr. Coke gave up his hounds. He soon became huntsman to Lord Craven and eventually it is believed to Lady Salisbury, in whose sei-vice he was at the time of his death. 42 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. on the right, so the point was pretty straight up to Canfield Hart, where they ran into him, about eighteen miles distance over as strong a country as any in England." Up to Latton Park the field experienced strong fences upon high banks, deep ditches and very deep ground ; thence the character changed — "sound ground over large fields, wide ditches ; but taking off and landing to be de- pended on." The writer remarks that the '' yawners, as they are styled in Essex, become awful if you don't keep the wind in your horse, otherwise they are easily got over ; but in most runs over it a cart or plough horse have been found most important friends." The great run above-mentioned must have taken Mr. Coke beyond his own proper boundary, for whilst he hunted that wide country round Holkham and Castle Hedingham, to Harlow and Epping, other hounds were hunting the Roothings, or, at any rate, a country which included them. The elucidation of this part of the hunting history of Essex is by no means easy. An apparent complication is brought about by the fact that there were in early times two Newmans, not related, hunting in Essex, and both their countries seem to have reached to about Chelmsford ; but the explanation is that Mr. Charles Newman, who lived at Scripps, Coggeshall, MESSRS. CHARLES AND HARDING NEWMAN. 43 was not contemporaneous with Mr. Harding Newman, of Nelmes, near Romford, who had kennels at Broomfield, near Chelmsford, and at Navestock. We will deal in this chapter with Mr. Harding Newman, because he was hunting towards the end of the last century ; though in what year the pack was established we do not know ; but there is some slight evidence that it was in existence prior to the year 1790. However that may be, it is clear that in 1793 Mr. Harding Newman's hounds had a grand day from Broomfield Hall Wood, near Chelmsford, as they ran a fox from there for six-and-twenty miles without a check, and rolled him over just as he was attempting to find shelter in Lord May- nard's garden, near Dunmow. While carrying the line of their fox through Lord Maynard's Park, many deer and hares were met with, yet so free were the hounds from riot, that a writer in the old Sporting Magazine felt bound to testify that the hounds hunted "with a steadiness not customary to some crack packs, which sometimes hunted the country." This covert allusion, this disparaging remark, may be supposed to refer to the hounds of Sir William Rowley, of Tendring Hall, Suffolk, between whom and Mr. Newman, there was a dispute concernincj the rit^ht to draw certain coverts in the eastern 44 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. and northern portions of the country. The Duke of Grafton's pack may also have been alluded to, for some east country critics appear to have found fault with the establishment. Mr. Harding Newman's huntsman — the first he had so far as we know — was Richard Fairbrother, who was born in Essex in the year 1734. He was always fond of hunting; and, after filling various situations, the nature of which we are not told, he took service with Mr. William Russell, of Slubbers, near Romford, "the fame of whose foxhounds," an old historian tells us, " everyone must recollect," yet we may search in vain for any notice of this, at one time, famous kennel, nor can we learn anything of Mr. North Surridge, or Mr. or Capt. Saich, who were likewise masters of hounds. Richard Fairbrother, however, after leaving Mr. Russell, took service under Mr. Harding Newman, and in 1794 he received the singular honour of having his portrait in the pages of the Sporting Magazine {yoX. iii., p. 60) : he is represented mounted on his favourite horse. Jolly Roger, who had carried him through some of his best and longest runs. In the short notice accompanying the portrait, Fairbrother is spoken of in terms of com- mendation ; and Mr. Newman's hounds are referred to as being regarded as the equal of any in England. Richard r'airbrother, however, like many another good MESSRS. CHARLKS AND IIARDIXG NEWMAN. 45 fellow, was not as voiiit'' as he once was ; he had a larsfe family, and so he gave up the arduous duties of hunting a pack of foxhounds for the easier task of hunting the hare ; Richard Fairbrother. though whose hounds he hunted we are not told. He died on .September 8th, 179S, at the age of si.\ty-four, and was buried at Chi<>'well. 46 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. We have referred to the giving of Fairbrother's portrait in the Sporting Magazine as a singular honour. This is confirmed by the illustrated edition of " Beckford on Hunt- ing" (1796), in which Richard Fairbrother is the only huntsman whose likeness appeared. As he died in 1798, hunted harriers before his death, and had a short notice of his career printed in 1 794, it is clear that he must have left the service of Mr. Newman before that date ; and unless he had been for some time with that good sportsman he would not have been deemed worthy of a place in the magazine ; and this tends to suggest that the Newman family may have kejat hounds longer than we suppose. By 1795 the hounds were spoken of as the "Essex Subscription Foxhounds under the firm of Harding New- man and Co." ; and at this date it was that the Broomfield kennel, near Chelmsford, was given up, as also was the sporting partnership which before existed, whatever that may have been. Prior to that, however, that is to say, in 1794, one of the hounds was bitten by a mad dog ; rabies took possession of the kennel, and the pack was destroyed. Thanks, however, to the freemasonry which, in almost every instance, has obtained among hunting men, a fresh pack was got together ; and Mr. Harding Newman, either single-handed, or with MESSRS. CHARLES AND UARDINC NEWMAN. 47 " confederates," as colleagues were termed in those days, continued to show a succession of good sport. As we proceed, however, in trying to unravel the uncertainties of Essex hunting, we are occasionally met by complications. In 1797, for example, we find it said that the hounds passed from Mr. Harding Newman to Mr. Denn, or Denne, of Tempsford. Now Mr. Denne, or whatever his name was, succeeded General Barnett as master of the Cambridgeshire ; and the General, a fine sportsman who had previously hunted the hare, turned his harriers into foxhounds about the year 1787, having his brother as a partner in the undertaking. The exact year in which General Barnett resigned in favour of Mr. Denne is not known ; but he was supposed to have hunted the Cambridgeshire country for about nine years, so that the year 1797 would quite fit in. The explanation may be that Mr. Denne, knowing of the fame of Mr. Newman's hounds, managed to secure some of the pack ; but, whatever the facts of the case may be, it is clear that Mr. Newman did not give up entirely in 1797, because in 1805 he sold his hounds to Mr. Conyers, junr., when he started on his first period of mastership, and then we hear no more of the Newmans of Nelmes for some time. 48 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. Later in the last, or quite early in the present, century, Mr. Charles Newman — no relation whatever to the other family of which we have already spoken — is found hunting the East Essex country, but of him we shall speak in a subsequent chapter. A passing allusion should here be made to a pack of foxhounds established in the year 1792 by two brothers, Tom and Dick Rounding. These jolly fellows, who had learned their hunting with Mr. Coke and Mr. Newman, kept the " Horse and Groom " Inn, at Woodford, where a field known as the " Dog Kennel Field " is pointed out as the site of their kennels. Pierce Egan's " Book of Sports " states that the Roundings hunted a great portion of Essex, including a circumference of upwards of one hundred miles,^ having runs equal to those of any pack of hounds that ever hunted the country. " As the foxes in Essex are so vermin bred," Dick used to say to Tom, " there will be no end to such a fox." " But we'll try, Dick," replied Tom, "and so let us be off, and see which has the best bit of blood." In the true huntsman's style, it was a fine treat to hear Tom Rounding in the field calling out, " Hark, forward ! Look at Tyrant, Gladsome and Governess. See ' In 1792, it must be remembered, Mr. Coke, Mr. Harding Newman, and several other packs were hunting in Essex. THE BROTHERS ROrNDINO. 49 here they go ! what a head they make altogether ! get forward, my boys ! they are laying at huii, as bitter as soot. Now — now for the brush ! " A celebrated foxhunter in Essex was accustomed to say : " I compare Dick and his grey horse to the moon ; the longer and faster I ride, no nearer can I get to them." The two Roundings did not possess an acre of land in the county ; and no hounds hunted a country more pleasantly than they did. The landowners and farmers of Essex were such lovers of foxhunting, and the excellent sport which a chase afforded them, that not a murmur escaped their lips.^ Indeed, the contrary was the fact, as it was the general expression of these gentlemen to Tom and Dick Rounding, " Why do you pass our houses in returning home ? You know we have at all times ale and bread and cheese for you and the held, with a hearty welcome." Pierce Egan states that the Roundings kept their foxhounds imtil Dick died of a fever, when his brother abandoned hunting entirely for some years. That authority ' This was similar to the experience of Colonel John Cook and (in our own day) of Mr. C. E. Green, while it was in curious contrast to the attitude assumed by some of the Essex landowners and farmers during the mastership of Mr. Henley Greaves, when one of the objections to him was that he owned no land in the county. 50 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. gives 1813 as the date of Dick's death, but the hounds were probably given up at an eariier time, for the Sporting Magazine of April of that year mentions the presence of Tom Rounding at the " Epping Hunt," and describes him as " the gallant leader of the once famous Essex Fox- hounds." Tom afterwards kept staghounds, and lived to a good old age. Under his management the " Horse and Groom " became a Sunday resort of the sporting and dramatic world. George Cruikshank was a frequent visitor, and so was Tom Hood when he lived at Wan- stead, and he described old Rounding in his poem, "The Epping Hunt": — "A snow-white head, a merry eye, A cheek of jolly blush ; A claret tint laid on by health With Master Reynard's brush. "A hearty frame, a courteous bow. The prince he learn'd it from. His age about three score and ten. And there you have Old Tom." We now return to the "Essex Hounds," and young Mr. Conyers, who took the pack in 1805. The new master, who was born in February, 1782, had been entered to foxhunting in the company of Mr. Smith (father of a famous son), and other young sportsmen who were easily MR. CONYERS S FIRST I'ERIOH Ol'' MASTERSHII'. 5 I primed for a frolic. " The Druid " tells how, after indulo-in£r rather freely in claret-cup at luncheon, they all followed Conyers into a deep morass, which is called " Conyers's Bog " to this day. In his first attempt to hunt the Essex County the young master had the assistance of the famous huntsman Ben Jennings. In 1S07, Jennings left Mr. Conyers's ser- vice tor that of an e\"en yoimger master, Mr. Farquharson of Dorsetshire, whose pack he hunted for thirty seasons, in a manner that caused a New Forest sportsman to say that if it had pleased Providence to make a fo.x of him originally, he would have picked any other man in England to be hunted by. We have not found any record of Mr. Conyers's sport durincT his first season, but his second was a ofood one, if his February rim fr(5m a small spring near Roydon Town to beyond Knightlands is a fair sample of the sport shown. The expense of keeping up the hounds, how- ever, soon emptied the pockets of the young guardsman. His own statement was that he "sold his commission to buy dog biscuit," but the money thus raised only lasted till the end of his third season, when he resigned the country, and sold the hounds. Such are the available odds and ends of information 52 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. relative to early foxhunting in Essex. On looking over the collection, culled from a variety of sources, the question suggests itself " What can we point to as being the origin of the Essex Hunt?" The Roothings, the cream of our country, were hunted in the last century by Mr. Harding Newman, and it is only fair to that gentleman's memory, and his services to foxhunting, to lay some stress upon the fact that his hounds appear — though unofficially — to have been called " The Essex Hounds," a designation which does not seem to have been bestowed upon any other pack in the last century. It appears to us, therefore, that it was Mr. Harding Newman's pack, or what remained of it, which was purchased in 1805, by Mr. Henry John Conyers of the Coldstream Guards, which is entitled to be regarded as the foundation of the Essex Hunt ; while in furtherance of this view it may be stated that the Sporting Magazine in recording- the sale to Mr. Conyers of Mr. Hardino- Newman's Hounds says that it was the intention of the purchaser to hunt the country previously hunted by Mr. Newman. Whether this be so or not, it is at least clear that the history of the Essex Hunt goes back without a break to the date of the beginning of Mr. Conyers's first mastership in 1S05, though for several years we find but scanty records of the pack. CHAPTER III. The Essex Hunt [continued) — Colonel John Cook. At the close of Mr. Conyers's first period of mastership he was succeeded by another soldier, John Cook, Major, and afterwards Colonel, in the 2Sth Light Dragoons. This famous foxhunter was born at Christchurch in Hampshire in 1773. Very early in life he proved himself a born sportsman by his style of hunting a pack of harriers, between Wareham and Poole, in Dorsetshire. It was in hunting; his harriers that Colonel Cook laid the foundation of that wonderful stock of hunting knowledge he afterwards possessed. His father was a merchant of much influence in Christchurch, and dying whilst his son was yet young, left Sir George Rose his executor and guardian of his children. From this it may fairly be concluded that Colonel Cook was not, in early life at least, the impecunious man he has sometimes been represented. The family were well-to-do, moved in the best society, and appear to have 54 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. owned some property about Droxford. At any rate, our future master would not have kept harriers ahnost before he was out of his teens had there been no money forth- coming, nor, one would think, would he have travelled so far from home as the Thurlovv country, in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, of which he became master about the year iSoo, in succession to Mr. Wilson, who for a year or two seems to have hunted the country given up by the somewhat eccentric Mr. Thomas Panton, of Newmarket, an owner of race horses and Master of the game to the King. Colonel (then Mr.) Cook, took up his abode in a cottage opposite the " Cock," at Thurlow, and during his stay in that country married Lord Eldon's niece, a Miss Surtees, daughter of Mr. A. Surtees, of Newcastle-upon- Tyne. There has always, from the earliest days, been a difficulty in hunting the Newmarket and Thurlow country, and so the young master discovered at the beginning of the century. To use his own forcible expression, he lound " foxes and subscriptions damnably short," so shaking the Thurlow dust from his feet he went back to his native county, Hampshire, where, in the year 1804, he became master of the Hambledon Hunt in succession to Mr. Thomas Butler, the first master of the Hunt, which was COLONEL COOK IN ESSEX. 55 established in iSoo, about the time Colonel Cook took the Thurlow country. There he stayed three years and then, on resigning in favour of INIr. Povvlett-Powlett, went into Essex. In the year iSoS he established himself with his hounds in quarters which were small, and not particularly well placed for his purpose, at Bell House (a name after- wards changed to Pilgrim's House), at Pilgrim's Hatch, near Brentwood. In Essex he stayed for five seasons, during which time he hunted his hounds himself and showed first-rate sport. His hounds were described as being as fine a pack as money and close attention to all the minutice of the kennel, added to his own instinctive as well as acquired knowledge of the animal, could pro- cure. He had a good stud of horses, plenty of foxes (of the old-fashioned sort, too), and what was in those days considered a liberal subscription. His whip was Jack Cole, who came from the Old Surrey, and was reputed to be the best whipper-in ot his day. Like the foxes, he was of the old-fashioned sort — a hard rider, and a hard drinker, the colour of a nigger or a collier, and commonly known as " Black Jack." Cook hunted the Essex County three or four days a week. In his celebrated work on F"oxhunting he speaks 56 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. highly of the country, and remarks that " Leaden Roothing is thought to be the best covert in the hunt ; but I pre- ferred Old Park Coppice,' a covert at the extremity of the Roothings, towards Chehnsford, probably because I had the best runs from it, and the foxes found in the latter are reckoned the stoutest in Essex." " I had four very superior runs from it in one season, and killed each day ; and it afforded me several good days' sport besides. I will mention a few of them. One run of an hour and twenty minutes, and killed at Colonel Strutt's, near Maldon, twelve miles on end at least. Another, with a fox of the year, the quickest thing I ever saw, and killed him a few fields from Takely Forest, the pack running into him in the open. Again, a run of one hour and ten minutes, ten miles on end and killed. But a run I had from a covert, a short distance from Old Park, was one of the most brilliant things I witnessed during the time I kept hounds. When we found him we considered him an Old Park fox, and as he went away, a friend of mine, an old member of the Talents Hunt, said to me, ' There he goes ; he is one of the old sort, my Master ; he is not to be measured to-day ! You will never see him again ! ' ' This covert disappeared many years ago. It lay midway between Gariietts and Pleshey. ESSEX FOXES. 57 My answer was, '/ hope not alive, sir! My hounds were close at his brush when he broke covert, and they went the very best pace for fifty-five minutes over the open without a check, and killed him at the edge of a chain of wood- lands, where we were certain of changing. Not forty yards from the place where they killed him a fresh fox went away ; if, therefore, he could only have held on for that short distance we should, in all probability, have changed." " I could enumerate many more capital runs to prove the stoutness of the Essex foxes, which I had from Manwood, Brickies, Witney Wood, Lord Maynard's High Wood, East End, Leaden Roothing, Matching Park, Row Wood, Marks and Offrey. All the foxes found in the coverts mentioned are stub-bred. I declare to you, I do not remember ever finding a bad running fox from Ongar to Haverhill, a disUmce of thirty miles." He mentions that the longest run he ever had after a fox in Essex was from Hempstead Wood (a covert notorious for stout running foxes) to between Heding- ham and Colne, where hounds killed him ; the distance was calculated at seventeen miles. In the Sporting Magazine for October, 1809, an amusing account is given of the opening day of his 58 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. second season. Hounds met at Kelvedon Park, and were thrown into cover at ten o'clock, " but not finding, they left the Park, and went to Puckler's Wood, where, after chopping a cub in covert, they unkennelled an old fox, which they ran for an hour and three-quarters, and was killed. But the death was rather remarkable. The fox being hard pressed was killed in endeavouring to cross Ongar river, when two gentlemen, who were riding for the brush, immediately left their horses, and plunged into the river, where, strugorlino- together a considerable time for the brush, with the whole pack about them, tearing the fox, one at length succeeded in cutting it off, and the fox immediately sunk. The Major being a little vexed that the hounds should be deprived of their prey, one of the gentlemen who had been in the water, plunged in again and succeeded in getting the fox from the bottom, and it was given to the hounds. Such desperate riding has seldom before been witnessed in Essex." We have already noticed Cook's tribute to the Roothings. His affection extended also to the " north country," of which he writes : — " During the time I hunted Essex, we had our Dunmow meetings, which, I assure you, enlivened us not a little ; and whilst I devoted myself to that part of the HUNT CLUBS. 59 countr)-, which was usually for a week or ten days each time, and perhaps three or four times during the season, I made that place head-cjuarters for myself and hounds, and was attended by many gentlemen of the hunt ; the Hertfordshire hounds on those occasions contrived to meet near to us on the alternate days, and the emulation ex- cited on the part of each hunt, which should show the best sport, made it the more interesting^ and the dinner at Old Malster's (the ' Saracen's Head,' Dunmow), who did all in his power to make us comfortable, always went off cheerfully. Taking into consideration the country altogether, it may be ranked as a first-rate ruralist " — that is to say, provincial counlry. Colonel Cook, it will be remembered, came from Hampshire, a county in which the good tellowship of Hunt Clubs had already made itself felt, and being as genial and convivial a soul as ever stepped, what was more natural than for him to seek to establish in Essex an institution which had ilourished in Hampshire? In that undertaking- he was successful. The members ot the Hunt ("many of them very opulent London merchants") formed themselves into a club, with "Old Cooky" as their secretary, chairman, in fact, caterer in general. Doubtless, he was the right man in the right place, for as 6o THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. one of his friends said of him, " he had a peculiar knack of making corks fly almost as fast as he did his foxes." The Dunmow gatherings were a great success, and a writer deckired that he never met an old Essex sports- man of those by-gone days who did not mention these meetings with pleasure and delight. Colonel Cook's mastership was completely successful. In Essex he found both gentlemen and farmers very civil and obliging. Then, as now, a race meeting was one of the forms of entertaiment most appreciated by Essex farmers. This was provided annually on the Galley Wood race- course, where a fifty-guinea cup was run for by gentlemen farmers in the district of the Essex Hunt. These races were in existence as long ago as iSio, when it was one of the conditions that the horses engaged must have been in at the death of four foxes. The annual hunt meetings were held at the " City of London " tavern. Cook had many subscribers amongst City men, whom he describes as "good sportsmen, well mounted, and riding well to hounds ; they never interfere with the management of them when in the field, contribute liberally to the expense, and pay their subscriptions regu- larly." At the end of the season 1812-13 Colonel Cook sold COLONEL cook's RETIREMENT. 6 1 his pack to Mr. Archer Houblon, and bade farewell to the Essex country in the following letter : — " To the Noblemen, Gentlemen, and Farmers in the District of the Essex Hunt. " Being: obliored to retire from the manao-ement of the Essex Foxhounds, 1 think it no more than common gratitude to return you my sincere thanks for the civility and support I have received from you during the five seasons I hunted the country. My hounds I have sold to Mr. Houblon, although very reluctantly, but my friends wished it, and I did not feel comfortable at the idea of taking away my pack from a country, I, as a stranger, have received so much kindness in. The manager, Mr. Conyers, jun., told me at Tattersall's he would do the thing as it ought to be done, and I sincerely hope he will perform his promise. 1 take my leave with wishing you all health and happiness, and prosperity to the County of Essex. " I remain, " Your very obedient and obliged humble servant, "J. Cook." It is said that some three years after his retirement Colonel Cook was out with the Essex, and some of his 62 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. old hounds, hearing his voice, immediately jumped a hedge out of a lane to get to him. An increasing family and the loss of some money were the causes which combined to lead him to give up Essex, but field sports, hunting especially, being something more than a passion with him, he never devoted himself seriously to military duties, though had he done so he might have fared well, as he was advanced in the Service by the influence of his friends. The Recruiting Service and the Inspectorship of Volunteers were good enough for him in the soldiering line, and on being appointed Inspecting Field Officer of the Birmingham District, after leaving Essex, he at once proceeded to combine business with pleasure by hunting, on a subscription of ;^8oo a year, a small district in Staffordshire, carved out of what had been Lord Vernon's country. Here, however, he did not stay long, for his resources were exhausted, so he took his family to the Continent, settling first at St. Omer, and then at Honfleur. Meantime he was suffering from cancer in the tongue, and after consultino- the first surgeons in London without o o success, he went to Rouen and placed himself under the care of a specialist, whose skill, however, was completely baffled by the case. OBSERVATIONS ON FOXHUNTING. 63 In 1826 his celebrated work on Foxhunting- (of which 500 copies were sold) was pubhshed by subscription under the tide of "Observations on Foxhunting and the Manage- ment of Hounds in the Kennel and the Field, addressed to a young Sportsman about to undertake a hunting estab- lishment, by Colonel Cook, H.P., 28th Dragoons." As the work is not now easily procurable, a short description of its contents may be of interest. The dedication to John Warde is followed by a list of 380 subscribers, including Mr. Henry John Conyers, Lord Petre, Mr. Charles Newman, Mr. Sampson Hanbury, and many other Masters of Foxhounds. The book, like Beckford's " Thoughts on Hunting," is written in the form of a series of letters. Cook's imaginary correspondent is addressed as " My dear ' C.,' " and advised as to the purchase, breeding, entering, feeding, lodging, and physicking of hounds. In his remarks on the preser- vation of foxes the writer is very outspoken as to " the great mania for game," declaring that "the useless quantity of it with which we find most coverts glutted, is a great mis- fortune to foxhunting." He points out the importance of hunting a country regularly, the good and the bad alter- nately, and of making no change in a plan of drawing when fixed upon, and he; lays down the law of foxhunting as to a 64 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. fox run to ground in a neighbouring hunt. Next follow the allusions to Essex which we have already quoted, and then the writer gives advice as to artificial earths and coverts, and the hunting of large woodlands. On the subject of " hunting countries," he points out that by law the owners of coverts can allow whom they please to hunt them and therefore it is most important that the boundary of a country should be held sacred ; and he tells how, being a good deal disturbed by some hounds which often disturbed a covert belonging to Lord Maynard, he mentioned the circumstance to his lordship ; who was a strict preserver of foxes, and one of the best of men. He said : "If you insist upon it, 1 will send them a written dis- charge ; but I, as an old sportsman, would advise you to arrange with them in a milder way : it is a bad precedent, and they may retaliate by instigating persons to send you a similar discharge in another part of your hunt, and annoy you very considerably." For procuring a stud of hunters, he recommends Messrs. Tattersall and the London dealers. He prefers thorough-breds to "cock-tails," and approves of "Nimrod's" system of conditioning and of Mr. Corbet's method of training hunters. In a pathetic description of the trials of a Master in OBSERVATIONS ON FOXIIUNTINC. 65 haviiiL;- his hounds over-ridden, he thinks it " very extni- ordinary, yet nevertheless true, th;it many people go out for the sake of the riding part only ; the hunting is a minor consideration." Hallooing, he adds, is even worse than over-riding. There may be some faint hope of im- proving a field that ride too forward, but a noisy one you can never mend. He mentions the difficulty of finding good hunt ser- vants, and disapproves of the system of " capping "1 which, in the case of some packs near London, he says, led to a bagman being turned out on Saturdays ; of course without ' In olden days it was frequently the custom to make a " cap " for the hunt servants whenever a fox was killed, a practice which, as may be supposed, led to a fox often being mobbed in order that the "cap" might be earned. In vol. xix. of the Sporting Magazine, p. 306, we are told that "Mr. Han- bury's Hounds throw off on Monday, March 22nd, at Moor Garden Wood, near Hatfield Peverell, Esse.x, in order to make a cap for honest Will Crane, late huntsman to Colonel Bullock, now about to enter the ninetieth year of his age. This veteran of the brush will take the field himself to see those friends whom for so many years he has exhilarated by the superiority of his hunting skill and the matchless melody of his manly voice. The hunt will dine together at the Angel at KeKedon, when those sporstmen not able to dine may, by some friend, contribute to Will's cap and so put a feather in their own." Will Crane, it may be observed, was employed to train the hounds of Mr. Smith Barry for their famous match on Newmarket Heath in 1762, against Mr. MeyncU's hounds. Capping, too, was much in vogue formerly as a means of replenishing the funds of a hunt, and it is curious to note that after the lapse of so many years the method has been revived. At the meeting of the North Warwick- shire Hunt held in the autumn of the present year (1895), the expediency of capping was seriously discussed but it was not adopted. At the annual meeting of the Southdown Hunt, however, held at about the same time, it was resolved that all strangers should be capped to the extent of ten shillings per head. 66 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. the knowledge of the master. He advocates Hunt Club Dinners and Balls, to please the ladies, being convinced things cannot go on right unless they are in good humour. Reference is also made to the importance of gaining the goodwill of the farmers by giving Hunt Cups for races for their horses. With regard to the pack when in the field, he points out that the practice of hunting at daybreak had become unnecessary in consequence of the improvement in the breed of hounds. He insists on the necessity of keeping hounds " in blood " and gives instances of their extraordi- nary scenting powers. The latter part of the work contains allusions to fo.x- hunting in Ireland, Wales and France ; remarks on hunting accidents; anecdotes of Mr. Meynell; suggestions for further improving the breed of hounds and providing for old hunt servants, and estimates of the cost of hunting establish- ments. The book concludes with lists of the various packs of foxhounds in England and of the hounds in some of the principal kennels. The Essex packs named in the list are those of Lord Petre, Mr. Conyers, Mr. Charles New- man, and Mr. Hanbury. Lists are given of the hounds in each of these packs, with the strange exception of that of Mr. Conyers, in which the writer must, one would think, have taken a special interest. COLONEL JOHN COOK's DEATH. 67 Little remains to be told of the life of the author. Game to the last, he never lost his love for huntino-, and in 1828, just a year before his death, though suffering much from cancer, he returned to England, and at the invitation of his old friend, Mr. Samuel Nicoll, Master of the New Forest Hounds, took the management of that pack while Mr. Nicoll was absent in consequence of a tragic occurrence in his family. Out of practice as he was, he hunted the pack and delighted everyone with the sport he .showed. This, however, was his last who-whoop. Unable any longer to struggle against his malady, he returned to Rouen, and wrote to a friend in one of his almost illegible scrawls : " I am fairly hunted down and run to ground by a damned hungry and incurable cancer under the tongue." And so the poor fellow was ; his tongue came away in pieces, and in December, 1829, he died at Rouen at the age of fifty-six. The Sporting Magazine thus describes him : — " He was a man of eccentric manners and habits, ridiculing, in fact almost despising, those effeminating habits both in manners and dress which now form certainly too great a part of the character of our modern dandy and foxhunter. They who fancied that Cook was nothing but a groom — that his knowledge was confined entirely to the 68 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. kennel and the stable — belied and slandered him. With all his roughness of manner and exterior, his mind was well stored, particularly on those subjects that his fancy at all called his attention to. To prove this, he was busied to the very latest period of his life, and as long as he could hold his pen, in preparing a new work for the press on foxhunting, in which he introduced many interesting and amusing anecdotes. "To those who knew and were accustomed to live much with Colonel Cook, and to see him in his cups, the relation of his quaint and eccentric expressions and anec- dotes are unnecessary ; and to those who did not know him, I doubt whether they would excite much interest. One sure sign of the influence of the juicy god on him was his becoming very noisy, hallooing and tally-ho-ing, and when in an advanced state of this kind it was most difficult to move him or get him to bed. I remember his once being asked to withdraw from the table and join the ladies, where he would hear some excellent music. He said : " Damn all music except the music of a pack of foxhounds. By gosh! I am like the man who was fond of his garden, and who, when asked by a lady to give her some choice flower, replied : ' Madam, I cultivate no flower but cauli- flower.' " ANECDOTES OF COLONEL JOHN COOK. 69 " However deep he may have been in his cups over- night — and it must be granted he was too apt to be so — it never seemed to affect him in the mornino;, when he was always at his post in time. This reminds me of an anec- dote told of him and his intimate friend and ally, the late Major, alias Billy, Calcraft. They were dining together with a jolly party of brother sportsmen at St-rm-r Hall, in Essex " [probably Sturmer Hall, near Haverhill], "when, owing to some trivial dispute, when deep in their cups, the ire of both became so great that each insisted on honour- able satisfaction from the other. The hounds were to meet at a considerable distance in the morning, and after the party had broken up, therefore (which, by-the-bye, was long- after the little hours had commenced), these two right honoiirable friends adjourned to a shed, there to await the first dawn of day, and of course, if possible, kill each other. It was a bitter cold night in December, but the fumes of Bacchus soon sent our heroes to sleep. Their surprise, however, at wakinor and finding themselves in this ridicu- lous situation, both close together and lying in the same crib — their poor hacks, too, which they had left running loose, having crept into the same place for shelter — excited the risible faculties of both to such a degree that they both simultaneously shook hands, and rode home together in •JO THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. perfect amity. Ever after, when any little dispute arose, a reference to the shed adventure always acted as a quietus, and havincr the desirable effect of turning their strife into merriment." From what has been said it will have been gathered that "Cooky" was possibly a "man of no blandishment," yet his above-quoted biographer was perfectly correct in saying that he was well informed. While in France he went to some expense in obtaining from Paris the exact measurements of the Venus dc Medicis, afiving the ideal proportions of a woman, as he was writing a book upon the benefits resulting from proper configuration. With the same object in view he carefully measured the skeleton of Eclipse, with the intention of proving that the highest rate of speed could be exhibited only by horses possessing the configuration and proportions of that famous racehorse. Then, finding time hang heavily on his hands, he turned his attention to introducing into France the best breeds of cattle and horses ; and a French writer of about thirty years ago acknowledged that much of the improvement in heavy and other horses was due to Col. Cook. He further collected a number of facts to show the attachment of Bonaparte to field sports, and he contended that " if the trumpet had ceased to blow and the drum to beat he would have been a decided foxhunter." CHAPTER IV. The Essex W\}^t {con/ iiuicd) — Mr. Henry John Convers OF Copt Hall. We have seen that, when Colonel John Cook gave up the Essex country, Mr. John Archer Houblon bouqht the pack. He was apparently joined in the proprietorship by Lord Maynard, and these two joint masters left the conduct of the hunt to Mr. Henry John Conyers, junr. — his father was still alive — who was designated the "manager." Under this new rdgime the opening day of the season 1813-14 was held at Grand Courts, Felstead; a strange fixture, at first sight, as being some way from the kennels, and outside the limits of the Essex country as at present constituted ; but we have seen in Chapter I. that the right of Mr. Conyers to Grand Courts Wood was admitted by the P2ast Essex. The fixture, therefore, may have been arranged on the invitation of Long Wellesley (well known in Leicestershire), of Wanstead House ; as Grand Courts was also his property, though like; his other possessions it soon passed into other hands, owing to the pace at which he lived. 72 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. As is often the case on opening days, the new management was not inaugurated with any brilliant sport ; but, before long, Mr. Conyers managed to rival Colonel Cook's achievements, good runs coming with satisfactory frequency. Only a fortnight after the above-mentioned opening day, that is to say, on November ist, a large field met at Old Park, and were treated to a severe run of two hours and forty minutes through the Roothing country to near Hatfield Broad Oak, where reynard gave them the go-bye. Two days later, the pack was again in the Roothino's, running- with an excellent scent from Marks through Lord Maynard's Park to the famous Old Park, where the huntsman had a bad fall, so Mr. Conyers hunted the hounds through the Roothings, by Skreens Park, making a half circle to Witney Wood. There the fox was headed and returned to Canfield Hart, where the hounds ran into him, Mr. Houblon and Mr. Conyers having two companions only when the fox was killed. During this season (i8 13-14) and the next, frost inter- fered much with hunting, but the weather was a good deal more favourable in the winter of 1 8 1 5- 1 6, and excellent sport was enjoyed. A writer in the Sporting Magazine mentions the steadiness shown by the hounds on one very windy and stormy day, when they ran an Old Park fox for exactly two MR. TIENRV JOHN TONVERS AND HIS STAFF. J T, hours, and killed him in high style, after his leaving" Scarlet Wood, in ihe Toppinghoe country. In the following season (iS 16-17) the high repute of Old Park was maintained by a February fo.\, which stood up before hounds through a good hunting run of two hours and twenty-four minutes. The pack thus continued under the management of Mr. Conyers until, by the death of his father in 1818, he was placed in a position to keep the hounds himself and from that date he devoted his superabundant energy and ample means to hunting the Essex country until his death in the year 1S53. Though the pack showed excellent sport in the hands of Mr. Henry John Conyers, it was apparently some little time before he obtained a really first- class staff The aforesaid Cole, whom Colonel Cook had described as "not a bad one," remained with the new- master for about ten years ; but he doubtless outlived his earlier reputation, and at last went out like the snuff of a candle. The rou'di "in-drinking Tom Webb, who was afterwards with the Ouorn, Old Surrey and Pytchley, is said to have hunted the Esse.x hounds for a time, but with what success is not known. It appears, however, that, for many years prior to the year 1833, the pack was in- efficiently handled, if, at least, any reliance is to be placed in the statement of a chronicler of that year. " The packs of 74 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. Essex and Suffolk," he wrote, "have had a brilliant season, except Conyers's, who has persisted season after season, in defiance of every advice, and one, would think, common sense, in keeping on poor old Holmes, who really ought to have been consigned, at least ten years ago, to a snug cottage and sinecure pension for the remainder of his days." Tradition has assigned to Holmes a fate very different from that sketched out by the above -quoted critic. The story has been told how, on going down one night into the kennel to quiet hounds while fighting (he having at the time nothing on but his shirt and top boots), they first savaged him, and then ate him clean up, save his bones, boots and whip, which were found next morning on search being made for the missing huntsman. As this gruesome story has been told of at least a dozen other hunts, it may happily be dismissed as mythical, though it was confidently related in Essex within forty years of the time when Holmes was hunting the hounds. The absurdity of the story is possibly shown by the fact of its having been so often related in proof of the theory that the hounds did not know the hunts- man or whipper-in, for it has been told of both function- aries, when not habited in a red coat, as though it were the custom for hunt servants to wear pink all day and every day ; but as eminent O.C.'s are represented wearing wig JEM MORCJAN. 75 and gown when sittin; W " z o s; ^ O' o C/1 "" w :i. ^ -i C — = o - 3 5 5 „ g-S u: I rt J- g:' > U ~. z o bj: .fi^i; r u Iv 5:^^:H8^ z J= ;; X cj o 5 -^ .-J=-= ^ q ' — . ^ C ii Tj 7^ UJ - n -S S ^ o eu o .. >■ u ij_, 3-- cj].S ■= _ ■2 o Mo S to 2 < < - ™ O a- "^ - M z X S S ■" S -o S 'J o H szS^'Ecs ii S-.^<(aH<« < 6 m -5 o ►J w 0! -" x' 00 c o o K Z o c v: S X n w' w J MR. IIKNRV JOHN' CONVKKS. Si found expression in a leaflet ur^in<4' the Dissenters of Essex to come forward and support Mr. Bramston, in spite of his Toryism, "and thus contril^ute to save the County from putting- a Burlesque on Representation by returning his opponent." As Mr. Conyers grew older and heavier, he was com- pelled to moderate his exertions. According to the recol- lection of an old Essex sportsman, Mr. Conyers, in his later years, hunted the north country about once in six weeks, on Fridays and Saturdays. Friday's pack was brought from Copt Hall on Thursday, that for Saturday following on Friday. The hounds were kennelled at Easton Lodge initil the squire's vocabulary exhausted Lord Maynard's patience and caused a change of quarters to an inn at Dunmow. Sometimes they stayed at Langleys with Sam Adams the miller,' and sometimes at Hatfield with that old-fashioned sportsman, Tom Webb, whom the master was wont to greet with, " Hullo, my little Webby ! " Mr. Conyers undoubtedly showed excellent sport, though the records of great runs during his mastership are not numerous. Some very interesting notes, referring ' This worthy sportsman used to turn out in a pony cart, an iaO b/1 5 o Q ■B n rt ^ 00 il C j3 3 ■*-• to K^ ss *i ^ •=^ -w 53 ■^" --2 1 o E ^ "^i; .- ^ =• rt *», >-. — . "j\ H 5 1 Z a. > D 5 en to W S rt rt H 1^ ?= CJ X _c - H S " ^' ^1 Q [/] ^ >> & _ ,W . c c o H RIGHTS OF COUNTRY. 89 such ;is these were part of his nature. He was suspected of payii\(i- off a grudge against a neighbouring M.F.H. by a raid upon his country. An old Puckeridge fox hunter who is still living remembers meeting with Mr. Conyers's hounds rmming from Northey Wood, Anstey, to Cave Gate, on the Barkway Road. The huntsman was recognised by the fact that he rode a grey horse and carried a round horn on a shoulder belt. They killed near Cave Gate, and the few remaining men, including Sir John Tyrrell, adjourned to Puckeridge with the hounds for the night. Mr. Conyers alleged that he came a long way to Hadham Park, thence to Hormead, and changed. Though it was felt that he was hardly within his sporting rights in getting to Hadham, no one complained, as it was all set down to his love of an adventure. If, as we have seen, the Squire had his faults, he also had his good points, one of them, and that not the least important, being his anxious care for the farmers. On one occasion when his hounds met, he pre- faced the proceedings of the day by presenting a silk dress to the wife of each farmer in the district, saying that the ladies must be propitiated before hunting could flourish. In spite of Mr. Conyers's rough tongue, the sport which he showed was sometimes shared by a stray 90 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. Londoner, in search of a day's foxhunting. Amongst those who had an occasional day out with the Essex was Mr. Georsfe Moore, the Cumberland lad whose un- flagging energy gained him a partnership in the great firm of Copestake, Moore and Crampton, of Cheap- side, and a biography by Dr. Smiles. In 1841 Moore was thirty-five years old, and had given up travelling for his firm to take a seat in the warehouse. The change to a sedentary life in London, with little exercise, made him hasty and irritable. He could not sleep at nights, and suffered from excruciating headaches. He took his business to bed with him, and rose up with it again in the morning. Everything else was prospering with him. Life was the same as before, but he could not enjoy it. He consulted Sir William Lawrence, who said, " You have got the City disease — working your brain too much, and your body too little. Physic is no use in your case ; your medicine must be in the open air. Can you ride ? " Moore answered that he had been used to a horse's back when he was a boy. "Well," said Sir William, "you had better eo down to Brighton and ride over the downs ; but mind you don't break your neck out hunting." Following this advice, Mr. George Moore went to Brighton with his wife, and in a month was able to ride his MR. GEORGE MOORE. 9 1 hired horse with comfort after the Brighton Harriers. He returned to London, and shortly afterwards took his first day's fo.\hunting. He sent his horse on overnight, and set off next morning at six o'clock to hunt with the Essex at Ongar. The day was fine, and a fox was soon found. The first fence was a rotten bank, and the horse tumbled back into the ditch with his rider under him. When they had both struggled out, George Moore's white cords were covered with mud, but his blood was up. He remounted, and, setting his horse vigorously at the fence, got safely over. From that moment forward George Moore remained a huntinof man, but it was lonaf before he became a suffi- ciently good rider to avoid frequent falls when the hounds ran straight and fast. Before the end of his first run he had fallen seven times ; Mr. Conyers rode up to him, and, noticing his bleeding face, smashed hat, and muddy breeches, exclaimed : " Young man, you have more pluck than judgment. Take care that you don't break your neck some day." As Mr. Moore's mount was a hirelins: and gave him seven falls, it is no wonder that for the future he followed hounds on a horse of his own, but the Essex was not the pack he selected ! 92 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. George Moore was a very religious man. He mentions that tlie only thing he could find to say against foxhunting, condemned by most of his Exeter Hall friends, was that he could not help thinking about Saturday's run during Sun- day's sermon. Jem Morgan, as we have already seen, did good service to Mr. Conyers ; but we have no record of sport in his time equal to that which was shown by the Essex Hounds after he left in 1848. During the latter part, the first whip, Will Orvis, became huntsman, and showed first-rate sport ; in fact, good runs took place almost as often as he had the horn at his saddle-bow. Not the least appreciative of his followers was a future master of the Essex hounds, the present Lord Rookwood, then Mr. Selwin. Between Copt Hall and Down Hall, the entente cordiale had not, for some reason or other obtained to the extent which both houses probably wished ; but the appearance in the field of Sir John Selwin's son was cordially welcomed by the " Squire" as an indication that the friction of the past was to be forgotten. Mr. Conyers and his future successor were soon on the very best of terms, and the character of the sport in which both participated may be judged of by Lord Rookwood's de- scription of a capital run seen but by a few, from the High GOOD RUNS. 93 Woods at Dunmow over the cream of the Roothinos, when the fox was pulled down ui a farm yard at High Laver. "The huntsman was drawing the High Woods from the Dunmow Road up to the Park at Easton, and the hounds divided, the larger portion of the pack coming away at the bottom of the covert, without huntsman or whip, and streaming away at once in the direction of Little Canfield. Miss Reynolds, who was afterwards Mrs. Sullivan, Stalli- brass, another man, whose name I forget, and myself were lucky enough to get away with them, and we had a glorious run alone with them all through, without the hounds being- lifted or helped at all, till they pulled him down, a whip being the first of the others to come up, about ten minutes after the obsequies had been performed. Such a run is a recollection for a life." About this time a famous " bob-tailed " fox gave run after run from Row Wood, always taking the same line by Man Wood, Brick-kilns, Moreton Wood, antl Blake Hall into Ongar Park Wood, whence he contrived to make his way in safety back to Row Wood, being invariably lost near Bobbingworth Mill on the return journey. His reputation was so great that men came out on their l)est horses when it was known that- Row Wood was to be drawn ; and, on i)articularly good 94 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. scenting days, the Squire used to take his hounds great distances out of their intended draw in order to hunt him. Mr. Conyers used to say that he would have given one hundred guineas to l^ill this crafty fellow ; but, unlike Mr. Meynell under similar circumstances, he would not take advantage of the fact that the fox always returned to Row Wood on the same night after being- hunted. At last the fatal day came. His stealthy retreat towards home was noted by a sportsman who had been thrown out in the run ; hounds were holloaed on to his line and ran into him. Another good run, which took place in February, 185 1, was described in doggerel verse, by a rhymester who told how — On Saturday week, at the Willingale meet, A large field assembled for no common treat. The Lord and Fred. Petre, from Hertfordshire some, And many who had a long distance to come ; Colvin, Tufnell, and Woodbridge, besides many more, Whom I had not the pleasure of seeing before. 'Twas as cheerless a morning as ever was seen, With the wind from the east most forbiddingly keen. We found him at Barnish, a quarter past two ; He was off like a shot, the hounds all but in view. One twang of Will's' horn — but ere that blast was blown. The fox across fifty broad acres had flown. ' Will Orvis, the huntsman. nUNTING IN VERSE. 95 With a side wind to fan them, the sun in their face, Heads up and sterns down, the pack set-to to race. The country rides Hght, on we merrily sail, Till we come to the meet of the morn, Willingale. Some few knowing old-uns, who made for Skreens Park, Might as well have been home in their beds or the dark. For here he completelv upset calculation, Quite as much as the Ministers' late resignation. He turned sharp to the right, down to Roden's broad river. Which set most of the field in a funk and a shiver. A bold farmer plunged in, and got out th' other side, But few were like him so determined to ride. The rest fought away, quick as thought, to the mill. While the fox was viewed climbing the opposite hill. The miller on high, where he stood with his sack. Saw the hounds, true as steel, running close on his track. Now through Beauchamp Roothing, and on by the Wood End, Away by Long Barns up to Abbots we bend. There are not half a dozen men near to the hounds. There is no need to tell them to ride within bounds. Away by White Roothing, still onward we go. Passing by many places which I do not know. Here he bears to the right, and by some lucky cast, A portion of wanderers come up at last. There is no time to hear what has caused their delay, For Reynard through Aythorp has taken his way. " Oh, don't press the hounds, sir, but let them alone, I pray you," cried Will, " and the fox is our own." High Roothing is reached, but his strength fails him fast ; He runs short and shorter, he cannot long last. He hears every moment the blood-thirsty pack Draw nearer and nearer, with death on his track. One rush — and it's over ; no struggle nor cry. He dies in the open, as good foxes die. Feb. 22, 1851. 96 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. Later in the same year (1851) the Master received a testimonial from the Essex Hunt. The gift was a hand- some piece of plate showing the treeing of a fox, with a group made up of Mr. Conyers, Jem Morgan and Will Orvis, with favourite hounds and horses. The presentation took place at a dinner at the Shire Hall, Chelmsford, at which two hundred guests were present, the chair being taken by Mr. Thomas William Bramston. The speech in which Mr. Bramston presented the testi- monial, and the reply of Mr. Conyers, are worth quoting : The Chairman said : If I felt that the success of the toast which it is now my duty to offer to you depended in any degree on the manner in which I might be enabled to introduce it, I should be dismayed by the difficulty of the position I occupy. But when I look round me on the guests who are assembled at these tables — when I observe the bright look of animation which beams on every coun- tenance in anticipation of the sentiment which you all know is about to be proposed, I feel I need have no difficulty in at once submitting to your notice the toast I have before me, which is no other than the " Health of our guest of the evening, Mr. Conyers." Gentlemen, the manner in which you have received that name shows me that I formed no incorrect idea of the estimation in which you hold the ^ ci X a Z > 2 O !W ■a bo" rt = •■" 3:-r, 5 O rt g P S 1) o " w 'o 51 0) o TESTIMONIAL TO MR. fONVERS. 97 gentleman whom we are this night assembled to compli- ment. If it be asked whv his name has been g-reeted with such enthusiastic acclamations, it will not be difficult to answer. The reason is, because he has at all times pro- moted to the utmost of his power, in his own district, the national sport of this country. Gentlemen, we hav^e a right to call it our national sport, because not only is it embraced and enjoyed by all classes in this country, but it is either not understood or not appreciated by any other nations on earth. Though I now appear before you in a black coat, I remember the time when I wore scarlet. At that time I recollect once having met a foreigner at a fox- hunt. The horses and dogs were in the best of spirits, the sky was everything that it ought to be, and everything looked promisingly, and augured a good day's sport ; but there occurred one of those untoward accidents which it is impossible to foresee or provide against, and the fo.\ was chopped in cover. My friend the foreigner thereupon turned to the Master of the Hountls (it was in another county than this) and exclaimed : " Oh, my lord Duke, I congratulate you on having kilktd that animal so soon, and with so little trouble. " But, though foreigners cannot understand it, it is a sport which affords enjoyment to all classes of people in this country. In this respect it has a 7 98 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. decided advantage over racing. x^t Newmarket, when races of the greatest interest are run — races on which enormous sums are staked, and for which the best cattle in England are entered — the peasantry who are engaged in agricultural pursuits in the vicinity of the course scarcely think it worth their while to turn their heads from their ploughs and harrows to see how the contest proceeds ; but when a fox is out, Hodge, the instant that he is aware of the fact, quits his ploughs, and harrows, and all, and away he scampers after the hounds. This shows how exhilarating and delightful a sport it must be. But its advantages are numerous and important. It is not that the physical frame of man is invigorated by it, and his intellect made clear and strong, but by means of this noble amusement habits are acquired which fit a man for the creditable discharge of other and more important duties. Depend upon it, no successful foxhunter was ever a fool. He must not only be a man of sense, but he must have a good eye, a ready hand, a cool head ; he must be capable of enduring great fatigue ; he must, above all, have great nerve, and an un- swerving determination to accomplish the object he has in view, no matter what difficulties and obstacles may present themselves in his way. It is upon these qualities that the national character of Britons is based. But, to return to i'RKSENTATIOX OK IT.ATK. 99 the topic which more immediately concerns us ; I would remind you, gentlemen, that we are assembled to pay a tribute of respect and esteem to Mr. Conyers, who, for forty-eight years of his life, has been the Master of a pack of foxhounds. We have heard of the father of the Bar, and the father of the House — but here, gentlemen, is the father of the chase. It is a proud thing to think that the county should have come forward thus enthu- siastically to testify their regard for one who has so long and so earnestly contributed to its amusement. He does not now ride as hardly as he once did, but he still sym- pathises in the noble pastime which he for so many years so actively enjoyed ; and even now, in our most eventful runs, when the hounds are suddenly at fault, how often do we hear the voice of my old friend just at that critical moment when it is most required. We know not from whence it comes, but we know that at that critical moment when the voice, and instruction and intelligence of a Master are most needed, there he is to befriend us, and to restore the fallen fortunes of the chase. Mr. Conyers, I wish you a long and happy life, and in the name of the committee and of a most respectable list of subscribers of all ranks and classes in the county, I have the honour to request your acceptance of the piece of plate which stands in the centre of this hall. lOO THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. The presentation was then made amid shouts of " Yoicks " and "Tally-ho," which were renewed when Mr. CoNVERS rose to reply. He said : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, I call this the very proudest day of my life. That in the capital town of the county to which I belong" I should be so received — in so enthusiastic a manner — with such kind compliments, and with everything done in so superior a manner, is a circumstance so extremely gratifying that if I had not the nerves of a fo.xhunter I should not be able to speak. But, gentlemen, I can assure you. with the most unaffected sincerity, that I do not remember, at any period of my life, to have experienced such gratification as I now feel ; and I do tell you, upon my honour, that my heart is as full as the brimming glass in which I have the honour of now drinking all your good healths. I can only say that I most sensibly appreciate your kindness, and that, as I have already stated, I feel that this is, beyond comparison, the proudest and happiest day of my life. I consider that the kindness you have bestowed upon me is more than I deserve. But I do assure you that I most entirely coincide with your excellent Chairman in his ad- miration of foxhunting, and that I cordially concur with him in the opinion that (31d England is the only nation in the world which properly enjoys, and is capable of properly SPEECH BY MR. CONYERS. lOT appreciating, that noblest and most gallant of sports. No other country in the world is capable of understanding, much less of practising, a pastime which has this great and peculiar characteristic, that it equally contributes to the enjoyment of the rich and of the poor, of the exalted and of the lowly. No other country but England knows any- thing of a sport which allows a chimney-sweep or the lowest man of the community to ride by the side of a duke. The humblest man in the population, provided only he be decent and well-behaved, ma\- ride by the side of a duke when both are in pursuit of the fox, but in what other country but dear Old England could such a sight be seen? When I come to think of the blessings of foxhunting I have no language to do justice to the subject. It is easy to talk ot love and its sweet return, but what is there that pro- motes love, and kindness, and benevolence, and benignity, and everything that is good, genial and kindhearted amongst countrymen and neighbours like foxhunting ? At a foxhunt men of the most opposite opinions — men who, on questions of religion and politics, have scarcely one senti- ment in common — Whigs, Tories, Radicals, and anything- arians can mingle together with as much harmony, good- humour and good-fellowship as if they had been all their lives on terms of the most cordial unanimitv and the most I02 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. ardent sympathy. .Serious people, who look upon religion as a matter of gloom, occasionally say to me, " How wicked it is to hunt." No later than yesterday morning a very great lady, whose name I will not mention, said to me, " How very wicked it is of you to hunt a fox." "What, madam," said I, "to see all my friends and neigh- bours thronging round me to enjoy a manly, healthful recreation — with happiness beaming upon every brow and a smile upon every lip — how can that be wicked ? " The lady seemed to feel the justice of my statement, but she took advantage of my infirmity and told me that I swore when I hunted. Well, perhaps I have done so before now, but I told her what is the fact, that I nevertheless retjard the swearing with as much disfavour as herself, and so I do. Swearing is a vulgar and ungentlemanlike habit. I oucjht to be ashamed of it, and so I am. I will endeavour never to do so any more ; indeed, I have almost taken an oath never to do such a thino- aofain. But the fact is, a habit that one has contracted very early in life is not very easy to be got rid of How- ever, I can declare with all sincerity, that there is not a serious person in the country who disapproves of swearing more strongly than I do ; and I could wish to impose a fine upon myself for every time that IN PRAISE OF FOXHUNTING. 1 03 I indulge in an oath. But as for foxhunting-, I will ever maintain the blessings it confers on a country are great and numerous. It encourages bravery, courage, and enterprise in a people ; and, above all things, it pro- motes kind feeling and good-fellowship. Whigs, Tories, and Radicals may look darkly and sulkily at each other, when they meet in the street, but the moment that the fox has burst cover, ill-will is forgotten, and mutual animosities are flung to the wind. It would be difficult to find in any country a better man than our chairman, and yet where will y(ju find a man who has a more enthusiastic admiration of foxhuntino: .'' He thinks with me, that foxhunting is not only a very delightful, but also very honourable and useful amusement for the nation at large. In support ot that opinion we have the authority of as great a man as the Duke of Wellington himself, who is reported to have said, " Give me a foxhunter, because he knows the line of a country, and makes the best officer I can have under my command." A genuine fox- hunter of the right sort, who is determined to get over the country, and who has a good eye, a strong hand, a clear head, and a firm heart, makes one of the best officers that ever wore a sword ; and that this is true, I will appeal to the hero of Waterloo against the I04 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. foolish objections of those serious gentlemen who mean well, but do not know what they are talking about. If they say that foxhunting is against religion, they advance an assertion from which I beg leave respectfully to dissent. I have my clogs and my sins — the former I like, the latter I am sincerely sorry for ; but we are not all born with the same dispositions, and what is hateful to these serious gentlemen is delightful to me. Many good qualities combine to constitute a genuine fox- hunter. Of these, the first and most essential, is good- humour. And here I must confess to my own deficiency ; m)' temper is not the most amiable in the world, bu'. my ebullitions of temper only last for a moment, and when they are over I would not hesitate to clasp to my bosom the very persons to whom I may have spoken most roughly. And now, gentlemen, I beg you will allow me to offer you my warmest and most heartfelt thanks for the magnificent piece of plate you have done me the honour to present to me. I shall value it to the last moment of my life, and this happy day I shall always regard as the proudest and most glorious of my existence. You have done me a greater honour than I could ever have hoped to have attained to. I thank you all from the bottom of my C) a ^ 6 N4 C ^ 3 i X 2^ ft OK J S S 00 "^ ESI 2^ ^ t 1- 1 X ^ Vm w in w ii w" X ^^ H "Si 2 ci c O ;v "O T'ifl bo . 3 i — » ^jj^H •^ 15 • •^ -sx o ^ c«2 l; bo bjo •1 c c '"3 '5) 1 •^ c! C 11 1 !>, 3 CO ^ cffi s: §-« "^ o 3 ca ,^ ho — 3 o MR. CONVKKS S HORSEMANSHIP. IO5 heart, and I feel peculiarly grateful to the committee who have exerted themselves so energetically, and have got up this entertainment in so admirable a style. With all mv heart I thank you all. I am threescore and ten, and must soon take my departure ; but it is consolatory for me to know that I leave behind me young, noble, and high-spirited men, who will do better with a pack of hounds than I can. I can say, howe\-er, with all truth and sincerity, that I never spared either trouble or expense to uphold, in a becoming manner, our great national sport. I have spent one hundred thousand pounds on that noble amusement, but 1 have been supported in such a flattering manner by the county that I cannot regret having done so. I can only hope that it will please God to continue my health to me (I am glad to say I am getting the better of my fall), and that I may again enjoy in your society the noble sport to which we are all so much attached. May God bless you all — yourselves, your families, and all that are dear to you, and may you be happy for ever I So far as can be gathered, Mr. Conyers, sharpened up probably by his periodical visits to the Midlands in his soldier days, was somewhat of a " dashing " horseman I06 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. while a young- man ; but on settling down for good in Essex he seems to have no longer carried a spare neck in his pocket, but adopted a style of riding like that affected by John Warde, the "father of foxhunting." He smuggled his horse over a country rather than crammed him along, and as his years and weight in- creased, this style of riding became more and more pronounced, until at last he put on so much fiesh as to render straight going out of the question. On more than one occasion he had paid visits to Devonshire, and the practice of " turning over," so common over the great earthworks of the west, appears to have com- mended itself to him ; at any rate, he adopted it, and, with his intimate knowledge of his own country and the run of his foxes, it enabled him to see most of the fun without doing much jumping. Riding to hunt, he would generally see the best of even a quick five and twenty minutes, and if after a very fast thing, some of the thrusters would remark, "We've done the old fellow this time, I fancy," the "old fellow" would be seen sitting in his saddle quite calm and collected, without having turned a hair. Those who knew the knack he possessed of getting to hounds were never surprised at seeing him appear at any moment. It was a case of Assheton Smith, LAST DAVS OF MR. CONYERS. 1 07 senr., over again. " How I wish your father had seen this run," someone remarked to the Assheton Smith, after a brilHant hunt. " Depend upon it he has," was the son's observation, and the old gentleman at once came forward to report himself. Mr. Fenwick Bisset, too, for so long a time the successful Master of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds, though riding about two and twenty stone, had the most marvellous knack of getting to the end of the longest and the fastest run. The time came, however, when Mr. Conyers was obliged to abandon the saddle, and then for a time he hunted on wheels ; but even this was at last bevond his powers. Nevertheless, as was the case with Assheton Smith, his interest in the doings of his hounds never abated. In his last illness Will Orvis was sent for to his bedside, on returning from hunting, to give him an account of what had taken place. One evening when his strength was failing fast the huntsman told how, after an extraordinary run, the fo.x had entered the covert of Canfield Hart, with hounds close at his brush, and not a hound could speak to the line afterwards. When Will came to this part of his story, the Squire, having listened with much attention, and without uttering a word, exclaimed, " Will, why did you not I08 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. hold them on to Canfield Thrift? " He, died on March 31st, 1853, and persons now Hving vouch for the story that duriny his last hours his hounds uttered a low mournful howl as if aware that they were about to lose their old master. There is an old foxhunting saying that foxes always run to a dying man, and it certainly received what would appear to be a striking confirmation in the case of Mr. Conyers, as shortly before his decease, and while he was confined to his bed, hounds thrice ran to within a gunshot of Copt Hall. On one occasion hounds ran from Ongar Park Wood to Epping Plain. There the scent failed altogether, but a friendly holloa showed that the fox had run the road for a short distance, and hounds eventually succeeded in hitting off the fox on the right of the road — towards Copt Hall. The fox had lain down, and on being: fresh found ran as straioht as an arrow for the house, and was pulled down just outside the gates. On another occasion the pack had drawn a long stretch of country blank ; but a fox jumped up in a field near the Wake Arms and ran to the stables at Copt Hall, where he was lost, and thirdly, a fox from Latton Park went straight for the house. Mr. Conyers unfortunately left no son to succeed mk. -a «) bo " •c ^ o ^ J t o ■^ c/1 t: ^■H rt a ^ -ng. •^ ii n > Z 5^ v X _■ 3 '■< C/7 5 N S ^§ - H = o ^ S j= ^ H.S? o WILL ORVIS. 109 him, uikI upon his death his hunt-servants were dismissed and the horses and hounds were sold at Tattersall's. Nearly twelve years after the death of " the Squire," his last huntsman. Will Orvis, lost his life whilst followino- the hounds in a disaster unparalleled in the history of fox- hunting. He had exchanged the ploughs of Essex for those of Yorkshire, and entered the service of Sir Charles Slingsby, Master of the York and Ainsty Hounds, and one of the best gentlemen huntsmen that ever lived On February 4, 1869, a fox from Monckton Whin, after giving an hour's twisting run at a tremendous pace, attempted to cross the river Ure at Newby Ferry just in front of the hounds. The river was very high from floods, and the fox and all of the hounds were carried over Newby W^eir ; but they all gS. across die idain. the back 5= tbe Sewage Farm, through :-^ -i- ^-1 _ ^ - ' =-. Forest, and raced away _' I?--r- : - : - _- :'t Canfield country, - T ~ : - :r.r Ehmmow High W ^^ ; \-\-. thai hoimds pulled him T railway bank, after one ~ _ ' '.nd forty minutes. . --- _: :: i - _ saw the finish — Mr. C. E. Green, Mr. H. Fc the brush. and I am not sure if it wasn t Mr. \- L rame and St If days. asl wa- in th e H with my h : , _ r. . - step I had ! t-- ■ 'Or takin O' Ti ■pirfi- SIR HENRYS RESIGXATIOX. Xove: :?er vouno- en' Sir Charles Smith s Osiers :r -verincr ■was Races, at the King William, or 2~di. r : - : ^ : .venr." m-inures I ever ?sw. irom Garnish as well as anyone ^ wav : whi'st :?■ f.r.ish the - ~" masrers.iip we had a :^_.:— et'"- Vate. O-jr h-".t meeting was h..- :. ^._-;- :_: . rassingtorc _,r. when ~ -^-i^nation was accepted, and Arkwright again took :..- r^ .ns of oince. with Mr. C. E. Green as tield master. ■"So ended seven ver\" pleasant years :; ;L.n, in IQO THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. which I got very fond of my hounds, and managed to get together a very good stable of horses, in which task I was most ably supported by Bailey, Dobson, and their staff. No man could have had better servants, and I believe their work was thoroughly appreciated in the country. Nothing could exceed the kindness I received from all the farmers and owners of coverts in the hunt. They love sport, and many of the farmers, when hounds are running, willingly shut their eyes to any damage that may be done to their fields. I remember especially one instance in the Friday countrv, when many jumped into a lane, and the opposite field being wheat, I turned to get to hounds by a fence higher up, when a man opened the gate of the wheat field, and on my saying ' No, thank you ; I won't ride over the wheat,' he said, ' Dang it, sir, come on ; it's mine.' Needless to say, I rode along the headland, but it showed a real love of sport which, to a master, makes hunting very pleasant." CHAPTER VIII. The Essex Hunt {confiiuicd) — Mr. C. E. Green. Mr. Charles Erxest Green, by whom the field mastership of the Essex Hounds was undertaken when Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson gave up the pack, belongs to a family of shipbuilders and shipowners whose name has for generations been a household word to P^nglishmen. Before the days of steamships and the Suez Canal the clipper-ships of the firm -known as "Green's Service" — afforded the established means ot transit to India ; and, in our own day, the firm has taken a leading part in the management of the Orient line of steamers. The family has connections, of long standing, with both the county of Esse.x and the Essex Hunt, through the families of Wigram and Perry, of which the former is closely allied to the Arkwrights ; while the latter, as we have seen, furnished Sir Henry Ibbetson with his coadjutor — Mr. J. \\\ Perry Watlington — on Mr. L. W. Arkwright's 192 THE ESSEX KOXHOUNOS. retirement. The association of the famihes of Perry, Wigram and Green arose through their common interest C. E. Green. THE BLACKWAM, YARD. 1 93 ill the raising of the wooden walls of old England upon the banks of the Thames. The Blackwall ship-building yard has a chronicle of varied interests, extending over three centuries. For our present purpose it must suffice to give a few particulars relating to its later history. During the greater part of the last century the yard was owned by the Perry family. Mr. John Perry built Moor Hall, Harlow, whence he was in the habit of drivinq; to Blackwall, alono- the then dangerous road through Epping Forest, stopping to dine at Woodford, where he is said to have always taken his own wine with him, paying at the inn for what he might have been expected to consume. Shortly before the century closed, Mr. Perry's daughter was married to Mr. C. E. Green's grandfather, Mr. George Green. The bride- groom's father had neglected his important brewery at Chelsea, through devotion to four-in-hand driving and other amusements, in which there is more pride than profit ; but Mr. George Green was well provided for by admission to a partnership in Mr. Perry's business. He used to relate with much satisfaction how, on one of George the Third's visits to Blackwall Yard, to see the ships then building for the British Navy, he had the honour of buckling on the King's spurs. Early in the present century. Sir Robert W'igram, of Walthamstow House, also became interested in the yard. 13 194 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. The inter-marriages between the families of Wigram and Arkwright have been numerous ; and the present Mr. L. J. W. Arkwright is, through his grandmother, the wife of the Rev. Joseph Arkwright, a descendant of Sir Robert Wigram. Mr. C. E. Green is an Essex man, having been born at Walthamstow. As a boy he hunted with Mr. Vigne's harriers, with an occasional " red-letter day " with the Essex when they were handy. In his school days at Uppingham, and as an undergraduate at Cambridge, he was a prominent cricketer. He played in the University Eleven in his first year, and continued to do so until he took his degree in 1868, being captain of the eleven in his last year ; he was also the best high jumper of his time at Cambridge. His cricketing career reached its climax when, in spite of his entreaties to be spared the honour, he was carried in triumph round a London cricket ground, after pulling out of the fire a hard-fought match for the Gentlemen of England. In later years, by his untiring exertions and liberality, Essex has been enrolled amongst the " first- class counties " in cricket and provided with a cricket ground second to none in England. Mr. Green's acquaintanceship with the Essex Hounds was renewed in 1877, and shortly after that date he came HUNT CRICKET MATCHKS. I95 to live in Essex, first at Tumours, near Chigwell, and afterwards at Theydon Grove, Epping. Wliilst livinq- in Essex, Mr. C. E. Green has arranged nianv Hunt cricket matches, in which he has often taken part. In July, 1883, at Moor Hall, Harlow (then the residence of Mrs. Perry Watlington), in a hard-tought match between the Essex and Puckeridee Hunts, his score of thirty-tour, coupled with an unexpected ciisplay of bat- ting by Bailey (the Essex huntsman), in company with Mr. R. B. Colvin, gave the victory to the P^ssex team. In the following year, when the two Plunts again played at Moor Hall, Mr. Green scored fifty-five in a match which was drawn, but decidedly in favour of P^sscx. During his mastership Mr. Green played cricket for the Hunt at Beech Hill Park and Leaden Roding ; while Bailey, animated by the master's example, scored further successes as a cricketer. When Mr. Green undertook the mastership of the Essex Hounds he had no previous experience of such a position, nor was he united with Esse.x by the tie of landed property in the county ; but his remarkable tact and good fellowship, combined with his experience as a leader of men in the cricket field, his ardent love for foxhunting and lavish generosity, were high qualifications for his new office. 196 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. Amongst Mr. C. E. Green's numerous supporters none was firmer than his cousin and partner in business, Mr. Frederick Green, who has constantly joined in the sport of various Essex packs ever since, in 1877 (shortly after coming" to live in the county), he was alone with the Essex Union Hounds when they ran into their fox after a run of more than an hour from Purleigh Wash. Though his residence at Hainault Lodge is distant from most of the Essex fixtures, no one is better known with the hounds than he, and the family he has entered to foxhunting. Intimately associated with the names of Mr. C. E. Green and Mr. Frederick Green is that of Mr. Roland Yorke Bevan, the vatcs sacer and present joint Secre- tary, with Mr. Tyndale White, of the Essex Hunt. Mr. R. Y. Bevan comes of a good hunting stock, being a son of the late Mr. R. C. L. Bevan and Lady Agneta Bevan {iide Yorke). Mr. R. C. L. Bevan and his brother, Mr. Richard Lee Bevan, lived in their boyhood at Walthamstow, and the first time that they attempted to jump timber was when aged respectively nine and seven, their father brought them over to Harlow, where he went to shoot on land occupied by one of the Stallibrass family. Mr. R. C. L. Bevan jumped his pony successfully over a gate, but Mr. R. L. Bevan could not induce his diminutive steed to follow. THE BEVANS. 197 In later years the two brothers were well known with the Pytchley and Hertfordshire Hounds, and were some- times the guests of that famous sportsman, Mr. Delme Radcliffe,' whose sister married Mr. R. Y. Bevan's uncle, the Hon. E. T. Yorke, many years M.P. for Cambridge- shire. Mr. H. O. Nethercote, in his history of the Pytchley Hunt, published in 1888, says of Mr. R. C. L. Bevan, who was then justly famed for his philanthropic and religious zeal, that he " would probably doubt his own identity were he to be told that at one time there was no one except himself who could beat his brother ' Dick' across Leicester- shire or Northamptonshire. That it was so, however, no one is more willing to allow than the younger of the two brothers." Mr. Roland Bevan's share in the sport of the Essex Hounds dates from the time when the Messrs. Green settled in the county. He has kindly furnished us with the following" account of one of his early adventures in the field in Essex. Whilst Mr. C. E. Green lived at Tumours, Mr. Bevan was on one occasion riding home from hunting ' Mr. Delme Radcliffe succeeded Mr. Sebright as Master of the Hertford- shire Hounds, in the year 1836, and hunted the country until 1839 or 1840. He wrote " Notitia Venatica," which was published in 1839 ; a new edition of the work appeared in 1893. 1 98 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. with him and his cousin, when, coming across the meadows between Loughton Shaws and Abridge, Mr. Frederick Green jumped his favourite hunter, Glynn, over a stiff post and rail fence and got a fall. The other two opened a gate. Nothing daunted, Mr. P'rederick Green, on reaching the river Roding, plunged straight in ; and, on seeing him get over successfully, Mr. Bevan followed him. Mr. C. E. Green, followed by his faithful henchman, Crawley, feared, with his great weight, that his horse would be unable to climb out of the muddy bed of the river, so went two miles round by Abridge. Remembering this event in the sub- sequent season, when hounds ran from Bishop's Hall to Loughton Shaws, Mr. Bevan attempted to repeat the passage of the Roding in an opposite direction, but with a most unsuccessful result ; for, getting into deep water, he and his horse were both nearly drowned, and only emerged after a struggle in an exhausted condition, and with the loss of both stirrups. A yokel, who had been standing by watching the proceedings, pointed to a spot on the river bank, about fifty yards off, and mentioned, in a casual sort of way to the dripping sportsman, " That' s where Mr. Green went through last winter ! " A gallop to Abridge and an exchange of wet clothes for a dry suit belonging to Mr. Percy Hargreaves, an all round MR. ROLAND VORKE BEVAN. I99 Sportsman in more senses than one, while it saved Mr. Bevan from a cold, added greatly to the amusement of the field on his reappearance as they were watching the operation of bolting the fox out of a drain a short distance further on. Mr. Bevan's hunting experience has not been confined to Essex. He first hunted with the Ted worth and Hert- fordshire Hounds, and the best run which he remembers was in 1867, with the Ted worth, from Bedwyn Braids up Shalbourn Hill, and then along the Downs. The fox was eventually killed at Woodhay, about thirteen miles from where he was found. In 1881 Mr. Bevan accompanied Mr. Frederick Green and another Essex sportsman, the late Mr. I. V. Walmsley, on a visit to Melton. The party took with them a stud worthy of the shires, but amongst their servants there was one place unfilled — that of second horseman to Mr. Bevan. This post was accordingly entrusted to a helper engaged from a livery stable. He fully understood his duty, and was one of the few second horsemen who turned up after a particularly good run. Then, mindful of a lack of " smartness" in his appearance, he modestly concealed himself behind a hay stack, whence he privately signalled his whereabouts to his employer. The next time Mr. Bevan met his ^Nleltonian second horse- 200 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. man the latter was selling nuts at a railway station in London. Such are the ups and downs of life ! No sooner was Mr. C. E. Green established in the position of Field Master of the Essex Hunt than he at once began to show capital sport. On the opening day of his first season (1S86-7), the place of meeting being, of course, Matching Green, a good run was brought off from Row Wood. Notable sport, too, was chronicled from Mrs. Mcintosh's rarse, near Havering;, on Novem- ber 8th; while on the 17th of the same month, hounds ran at their best from Takeley Forest. The dawning of the new year brought with it to Bailey, the huntsman, the satisfaction of handling the first fox he ever got hold of in Blackmore High Woods ; while on March 14th, after the Point-to-Point Races at Good Easter, a fox, found in Lord's Wood, gave a good run of an hour over the Roothings. In the course of this capital gallop one young man was left right under his horse, at the bottom of a deep Roothing ditch, bringing" vividly before one's mind the words Whyte-Melville used in the dedication of his book, " Riding Recollections." He penned that most interesting work in memory of the many happy hours he had spent on the back of a generous hunter ; but he did not forget those anxious CUBHUNTING IN AUGUST. 20I minutes when " a mutual indiscretion " caused the normal position to be "reversed." And reversed it was in the case of the young man above mentioned. \'ery fortunately for him, willing hands were within hail to rescue him from his dangerous position, or he would have run a o-ood chance of beino- crushed to death : for it o o took the rescuers something like a quarter of an hour to extricate him. Mr. Percy Hargreaves, a welter weight, whose good offices to Mr. Bevan have already been mentioned, was chietiy instrumental in bringing about this result, as also in releasing another rider, who was hung up immediately afterwards, by his foot getting fast in the stirrup. To reach this latter victim Mr. Hargreaves, like a good Samaritan, waded through water up to his tops. This season (1885-6) was prematurely closed by the lamented death of Mr. Hervey Foster, to whom further allusion is made in our account of the Rundells Race Meetings. The season 1886-7 opened early. Two brace of cubs were killed in August, an achievement which Bailey notes as "a record for this country," adding, "this was the best cubbing season we ever had." On December 5th, 1887, Bailey chronicles that rare event, a very good hunting run from Blackmore. He says : " Found in College Wood, ran 202 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. through Parson's Springs, to the left through Fryerning Woods, and just touched Thoby Wood, on by Fryerning Church, as if for Arnolds, close by Ingatestone, and killed him in the open — one hour and thirty minutes." Even better sport came soon. Bailey writes : — " Saturday, December 24th, was the great day ; and one of the best days I ever saw. The meet was fixed for Blue Gates but — I don't know for what reason — it was altered to Four Ashes. We found our first fox in Canfield Hart, came away by Canfield Grange to Hatfield Town, straight through Row Wood by Hatfield Grange, and killed him in the open — one hour and ten minutes. We then drew Man Wood blank, but found a clinker in Herrings Grove, the square covert close to Brick-kilns, came away a screamer straight alongside of Man Wood down the Green Lane, right round the Priory Wood, up close by White Roothing, straight by Barrack, over a nice line up to Waples Mill ; the pace had been a cracker ; the fox was just going out of the Mill dam as hounds plunged in. Straight by Berners Hall they raced as if for Skreens, on to the left, and racing from scent to view, killed him in the flower garden of a cottage by the side of the road before we got to Skreens Lodge, after one of the best runs — one hour and thirty-five minutes — over a lovely country. THE THIRTY GUINEA RULE. 203 Mr. C. E. Green, Mr. Bevan and Mr. C. E. Ridley went well in this run ; and all thoroughly enjoyed their Chri.stmas dinner the ne.xt day." On March 9th, there was a first-rate run from Tha.xted Lodoe Wood, after the Point-to-1'oint Races at Tha.xted, to which we refer elsewhere. At the close of this season it had become evident that, out of consideration for the Essex farmers in their stru"-orles with the worst of bad times, stringent measures must be taken to reduce the number of followers, and to prevent the annoyance which every farmer feels when strangers ride over his land. The Hunt Club had recommended as a remedy, that the Secretary should ask all strangers hunting with the hounds for a subscription of thirty guineas. This plan was tried as an experiment during the season 1S87-8, and found to work well, and to be well received by bcjth farmers and landowners. Accordingly, at the Annual Hunt Meeting held on .March 17th, 1S88, it was resolved: "That for the future the subscription to the Essex Hounds would be thirty guineas for all gentlemen not resident within the limits of the Hunt, with the exception of those who belonged to the Hunt Club, and officers of the army who are quartered in the county." The latter part of this season was not propitious. 204 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. Hunting was much interfered with by frost, and the hunts- man's leg was broken by a fall, whilst riding at the Hunt Steeplechase Meeting on April 5th. 1888-9. I' Of this season Mr. Green vacated the position of field master in favour of the master's son, Mr. Loftus Joseph Wigram Arkwright. On the opening day, hounds ran well from Down Hall, throueh Matchino- Park, across a big line of country to Belgium Springs, and on to Harlow Park and Latton Park ; but the season was not a fortunate one for sport, and the run of the season, on March 30th, from Blackmore into the Union county, was most un- happily interrupted by the death of a member of the hunt, who fell beneath his horse with fatal result. At the end of this season Mr. C. E. Green again became field master. 1889-90. Cubhunting began on September 14th, at Harlow Common, and passed off well, cubs being plentiful, particularly at Down Hall. The opening day of regular hunting afforded two good runs from Man Wood and Envilles ; and, during the same week, a remarkably good day's sport was enjoyed in the Pleshey country. During the day, hounds ran three foxes, and killed one of them at Broomfield, after forty-five minutes from Pudding Wood. In the evening, they found U.K. II. 205 in an osier bed, near Good Easter, and killed in Earners Wood, after a first-rate run of fitty-eight minutes. Hounds had just light enough to enable them to break up their fox ; and it may be noted that a well-known member of the hunt, Mr. Sands, rode through a great part of this run with his yirths hanyino- loose, and danelino; arainst his horse's hind leos. On December 13th, the meet at Easton Lodge was honoured by the presence of the Prince of Wales. On this important day, weather and sport were, unfortunately, bad ; in marked contrast to that of the next morning, when a fox, found in Witney Wood, afforded the run of the season ; standing up before hounds for over an hour and a-half before he was cleverly brought to hand near Dudbrook. Before the end of the year there were several more exceptionally good days, including runs of over an hour each from Bendysh Wood and Row Wood ; but the picture had its reverse, and a week later, that is to say, on Decem- ber 2 1st, it was clearly impressed on Essex sportsmen that no one can commantl success, for on the latter date came the first of the two blank days of the season. Excellent sport continued to be enjoyed. In January there were five first-ratc! days in succession. On two of these davs Bailev was absent through illness, and the 206 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. hounds were admirably hunted by Jim Cockayne. February also afforded five exceptionally good days ; and in March — though there was some interruption from frost and a second blank day — good sport continued. On March 22nd, after the Hunt Meetins: at Har- low, hounds ran well from Harlow Park to the gates of the master's house at Epping. On the 29th, a good forty minutes from Langleys (Mr. Tufnell's) ended in a kill in the East Essex country, after a clash with that pack, and two days later, a fox from the Beachetts took hounds in a quick burst again to the master's house at Epping. This first-rate season ended on the same afternoon with a hard run from Parndon Woods. At the close of the season, the hounds were purchased by Mr. C. E. Green. 1 890- 1. During this season the Hunt had to contend with drought during October ; prolonged frost during the winter, which stopped hunting from December 8th to January 26th, and bad scent during the latter part of the season. A wonderful hunting run occurred on November 24th from Kelvedon Hall Wood. Hounds hunted their fox for upwards of three hours, ultimately killing him in the High Street of Brentwood. The Rev. Frederick Fane, in his eightieth year, was in at the death. The run of the season was that of March 14th. A fox, A RECORD SEASON. 207 found in a faarefot stack near Row W'notl, ran for one hour forty minutes by Poplars, Canfield Mount and Aythorpe Roding to White Rodino-, where hounds ran into him with- out assistance from the huntsman, who had the misfortune to fall and break his leg. A week later, the annual meeting was held at Harlow, and Mr. Green again undertook the mastership. On April 4th, the season ended with an hour of woodland hunting round Gaynes Park and Ongar Park in the morning, and a first-rate fifty-five minutes from Harlow Park to Copt Hall and Epping Forest in the afternoon. 1 89 1 -2. A plentiful supply of foxes was found during cubhunting and continued throughout the season, which contained no blank day. In spite of bad scent in the early part of the season, and many stoppages from frost, forty- two brace of fo.xes were killed, the hia^hest number ever known with this pack, and a good stock remained at the end of the season. Amongst the red-letter days were the followinor : — November iSth, from Mark Hall to ground in Epping Forest by Loughton, and a good evening run from Latton Park. December 9th, very fast from Takeley Forest, where most of the field were left, past Canfield Hart on to High Roding Bury, and, finally, to ground at Wilson's .Springs, after three and a-half hours. January 208 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. 2nd, three good runs in the Rodings, just before a long frost ; and on February 6th — the best day of the season — a beautiful hunting run of one hour and fifty minutes, from Wilson's Springs across to Takeley Forest, ending in a kill at Canfield Hart, and a very fast evening run from Down Hall to ground in Latton Park. Another good day was March 21st, when hounds ran well in the morning from Curtis Mill Green to Ditchleys, and in the afternoon from Colonel Lockwood's gorse to below Chigwell village, where they killed their fox. The close of the season was marred by two incidents, which caused much regret. At the annual meeting on March 26th it was announced that Mr. Green felt unable to continue his mastership, owing to the depressed state of the shipping trade ; and four days later, when hounds were running well from Deer Park, Bailey had a fall over wire, and was badly hurt. His own description is that he thought he was a corpse, but deceived himself The hounds were well hunted for the next fortnight by Jim Cockayne. On April 1 6th the experiment was tried of hunting at 4.30 a.m., but a blinding snow-storm interfered with its success. Though Lord Willoughby de Broke, who was staying with the master, declared that hunting was out of the question, a select field, including Lady Brooke, faced CURTIS MILL GREEN. 2O9 the Storm, and were rewarded with a short run. Later in the da\- it was arrano-ed, at an adjourned hunt meeting, that the country should lie hunted duriuL!' the followinsf season by a Committee, with Mr. Green as field master. 1892-3. Thecubhunting season was a very good one. An unpleasant incident was an alarm of poison in Black- more High Woods on October "th. Ne.xt morning there was a remarkable scent at Pleshey. Two and a-half brace of cubs, and an old fox, were brought to hand in a short morning's work. On the opening day hounds ran well for an hour from Down Hall, but thick fog threw out many of the field. During the winter hounds were often stopped by frost ; and in the spring, dry weather brought hunting to an early close. A red-letter day was January 30th. A local paper reports that, after a run from Bishop's Hall, hounds pro- ceeded to draw Curtis Mill Green, a sure find this season. Two fo.xes, almost at once, went away in the .same direc- tion, and the hounds, settling to one, raced him towards Dutlbrook, where he leant to the left, and ran through the Navestock coverts, the hcainds close at his brush. Over the river Roding, or rather through it, they drove without dwelling a moment. Here a very straight rider, and one who sees more than most of a run, for his courage is 14 2IO THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. generally equalled by his judgment, indulged in the luxury of a cold bath. We trust that neither this- keen sportsman, nor his horse, was any the worse for their gallant, but un- successful, attempt to pound the field ; although, to use the language of a popular game, he may fairly be said to have been ' rubiconed.' The rest, with more caution and better success, cross by one or other of two convenient fords, in time to see hounds pour across the Ongar road for Sir Charles Smith's coverts. Streaming on by these, a momen- tary check occurs ; but Bailey, with his accustomed skill, sets them right, and they are soon in the recesses of that vast expanse of woodland — Ongar Park. But, alas for the fox ! it is of no avail that he has gained this usually safe haven. The hounds stick to him with relentless pertinacity, and he is compelled to succumb to such remorseless pursuers. Mr. Green, who went in his well-known style, must have been pleased to see the grand way his bitches ran ; and, as for Bailey, he beamed with delight when he handled the varmint. Time, forty minutes in the open, fifteen minutes in covert. Among so many thrusters 1 dare not, without giving offence by inadvertent omission of a name, particu- larise ; but I may, perhaps, be permitted to say what a real pleasure it was to watch Lady Brooke, on almost her first appearance on this side of the country, seeing the run so well." THE MASTER IN THE MUD. 211 The writer of the above account distinguished himself, a month later, by being first in at the death, at Long Barns,, of a fox which had been run very fast for forty minutes from Mr. Caton's barn at Aythorpe Roding, and taking the fo.x from the hounds, in the absence of any of the hunt servants. March 3rd was a very good day in the Friday country. Bailey writes : — " Met at Thaxted, and had one of the best runs ever seen. Found in Brockleys, and a nice scent ; he came straight through W'est W^ood, over the road, and set his head for the finest line of country ever could be straight for Thaxted Lodge Wood, over the big fields they fairly raced, and came as if for Lubber Hedges, bearing away to the right, leaving Avesey on his right. Mr. Green's horse fell down and pitched him head first into a deep mud hole, and when he got up he was such a sight, his eyes, mouth, and ears were full of mud, I thought he would have choked. He had to pull the mud out of his mouth. Hounds ran on through Dow Wood, through one corner of Bigod's Wood straight down to Dunmow, through Newton Hall, to the High Woods, across the Park by the Leys to the Maze, where we lost. I think we must have changed foxes, as no one fox could have stood it ; 212 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. everyone had enough ; one hour and fifty minutes. We left off by 1.30." A few days later, after an hour and twenty minutes from Galley Hills to Broxbourne and back to Monkhams, where they killed, hounds were running a fox from Latton Park, when a blind ditch gave a fall to one of the best lady riders in the field. The same ditch brought down the master who, springing from it, and seeing a follower of the hounds on a "pumped out" steed on the opposite bank, asked him to cross the ditch on foot and take charge of his horse whilst he went to her ladyship's assistance. But the wary sportsman's motto was " Let well alone." "What," cried he, "am I to do with my own horse ? — the beggar will bolt ! " The beggar in question looked as if he would prefer, in the words of Mark Twain, " to lean up against a wall and think." Happily, all difficulty was soon removed by the arrival of the faithful Crawley. This was the last season of Mr. Green's mastership. He was a master for whom the longest day was never too long, and, as we have seen, he showed excellent sport. He gave close attention to the maintenance and improvement of the pack. In 1S90 he secured the Belvoir draft — the finest in England, numbering thirty-five couple, with a view to enabling the Hunt to breed their own hounds; and he THE IIArrV FAMILY. 2 1^ held most successful pujipy shows to encourage the careful walking of puppies. His geniality in the field was well described by his successor, Mr. E. S. Bowlby, when he said that Mr. Green had made the Essex Hunt a sort of happy family. CHAPTER IX. The Present Masters and Their Field. When Mr. C. E. Green was unable to continue as master, much anxiety was felt for the future of the Essex Hunt. In taking the office previously filled by "Sir Henry," Mr. Green had no light task to perform ; yet so able was his management that it was difficult to tell how matters were to be arranged for the future without oriving' ground for unfavourable comparisons. Since the death of Mr. Loftus Wigram Arkwright, in 1889, his only son, Mr. Loftus Joseph Wigram Arkwright has been looked upon as entitled, by right of birth, to succeed in due time to the office held for so many years by his father and grandfather. The young squire has long been recognised as " out and away " the best man to hounds with " The Essex," and, as we have seen, he had made his dtfhi^ as field master in the season 1888-9. But nowadays the ownership of Essex land does not justify lavish expendi- MR. E. S. BOWLBV. 215 ture, and the mastership might have proved too great a burden for Mr. Arkwright to undertake single-handed. The difficulty was happily overcome by the princely generosity of Mr. Edward Salvin Bowlby. This gentle- man's country residence — Gilston Park — is in Hertford- shire, but within easy reach of Essex, and Mr. Bowlby has long been a prominent supporter of the Essex, as well as of the Puckeridge hounds ; in fact, it is impossible to say how either of these packs could be carried on if his assistance were withdrawn. He now joined Mr. Arkwright in the mastership ; whilst Mrs. Bowlby became, so to say, "lady paramount" of the Esse.x field, a position which she fills to admiration. Gilston has interesting historical associations ; but we must confine ourselves to those of comparatively recent years. Nearly fifty years ago, the property came into the market, upon the death of Mr. Robert Plumer Ward, third husband and widower of a ijranci-dauCThtcr of the seventh Earl of Abercorn, who had inherited the Gilston property from her first husband, antl maintained a stately establishment, blocking the neighbouring lanes with her huge four-horse chariot, preceded by outriders in livery, until she got over the difficulty by causing bays, or " turn-outs," to be cut in the hedges. 2l6 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. The estate was purchased in 1847, by Mr. John Hodgson, by whom the mansion was rebuilt. This gentleman is mentioned in Chapter IV. He had pre- viously lived at Wanstead, and he and his brothers were prominent members of the Essex field in Mr. Conyers's time. The Messrs. Hodgson were uncles of Mr. E. S. Bowlby, whose possession of Gilston dates from the death of Mr. John Hodgson in 1S82, at the age of seventy-six. The joint mastership of Mr. Bowlby and Mr. Ark- wright has now entered upon its third season. It has worked well, and long may it continue. Our chronicle of the chief incidents of the last two seasons is as follows : — ■ 1893-94. The cubbing season was a very good one ; and durincr regular hunting several excellent runs took place. On December 20th, hounds ran at a great pace from Harlow Park to the great earths in Epping Forest ; the fox's line being doubtless an example of the good service rendered to foxhunting through the frequent visits to Epping Forest of Mr. Edward Barclay's harriers. On February 24th hounds met at White Roding. The day was a blank until late in the afternoon when an out- lying fox gave a first-rate run from near Hatfield Broad o MR. COLLINS JUMP. 21 7 (3uk in a lame circle to Barrini'ton Hall. Amonafst the fortunate few who saw hounds find and were able to live with them in this run, special mention is due to Mr. Chaffey Collin. After riding his horse " Cedric " over a brook between Man Wood and White Roding at a place afterwards measured and found to be twenty-four feet in width, he resigned his pride of place to take charge of Bailey's exhausted horse, whilst the huntsman finished the run on "Cedric." On March 17th hounds again ran well towards Epping Forest, finding their fox in Mark Hall Wood, and killing him in the open near Spratt's Hedge Row, on the Copt Hall Estate. This year the Essex Hounds were for the first time represented at the Peterborough Hound Show. The result was most successful. Trouncer, bred at the Essex Kennels by the Whaddon Chase Tuner, out of Truelass by the Grafton Dancer, a compact and powerful hound, with forearms like those of a prize-fighter, was adjudged first out of thirteen entries in the Stallion Hound class. We give a portrait of this fine hound, taken from a picture by Mr. Frank Paton.^ Trouncer unfortunately died in the ' This well-known artist lives at Moreton, near Ongar. The Essex Hunt country has furnished subjects for many of his admirable sporting sketches. 2l8 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. following year, but the pack includes several of his progeny. 1894-5. Some good sport was afforded in spite of the stoppages caused by long-continued frost. During this season there were two good runs from Bendysh Wood. On December 7th the line of the fox was over the open country up to and through Lidegates, and on to near Haverhill where he beat the hounds. On January Sth the fox ran a similar line, the run continuing over a fine country beyond Haverhill whence the fox worked his way back by Holmbrook and Hempstead to Little Bendysh, where hounds were stopped. The run had lasted one hour fifty-five minutes. Horses were done to a standstill. The best run of the season took place on December 22nd. Bailey's account is as follows : — "Saturday, December 22nd, was one of the windiest mornings I ever was out. It very near blew one out of the saddle. There was a fox in the Hart, but we could hear nothing-. We drew the Thrift and found another fox, but couldn't do anything, so the master decided to run through High Roding Springs, and then give it up. We found a good fox, came away by High Roding Street, straight by Dobbs Wood, and rattled along to Lord's a THE ESSEX FIELD. 219 Wood, out by Crippen's Farm, close by Leaden Wood, bearino; to the left, as if for Good Easter, ran up the brook, and bearing to the right over a nice line straight to Skreens Wood, through, and were fairly beat ; but getting into the park hounds ran into him in the middle of the park after the best run of the season, one hour and ten minutes. A good eight mile point. Miss Morgan had the brush." Our story of the v^arying fortunes of the Essex Hunt is told. Before we lay down the pen and return to the saddle, all that remains is to attempt a brief review of the leading members of the Essex "field," which, though larger than in earlier days, is still of moderate size, and is almost entirely restricted, thanks to the salutary "thirty guinea rule " to residents within the limits of the hunt. Agricultural depression, though nowhere more severely felt than in Essex, has not driven from the hunting field a fairly representative number of covert-owners and occupiers of land, the two classes by whose grace fox- hunting exists. In the former class, second only to Lord Rookwood comes Mr. Loftus J. W. Arkwright, not only as sharer in the mastership with Mr. E. S. Bowlby, but also as one whose care for foxes is as exemplary as his riding in their pursuit. 2 20 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. After the masters ''Place aux dames." The late Lord Rosslyn cared little for foxhunting and the Easton coverts acquired in his time an unenviable reputation, but the Countess of Warwick inherits from her father, the Hon. Colonel Maynard, a genuine love of horses and hunting, and insists that the preservation of foxes, as well as game, must be attended to by every gamekeeper who enters her service. Whatever can be done is done by the Countess to ensure sport for her foxhunting neighbours, and for such guests as the Prince of Wales, the late Duke of Albany, the Princes Francis and Adolphus of Teck, the Duchess of Sutherland, Lady Clarendon, Lady Algernon Gordon Lennox, Lord Willoughby de Broke, Lord Lonsdale, and Lord Charles Beresford. Hallingbury Place, long ago closely connected with Easton Lodge in the management of the Essex Hounds, has recently had its hunting memories revived by the appearance in the field of Miss Archer Houblon, daughter of the present owner, Lieut.-Colonel G. B. Archer Houblon. On the southern side of the country, at Havering, Mrs. Mcintosh often joins in a run from her gorse-planta- tion, or from the coverts of her fox-preserving neighbour, Mrs. Pemberton Barnes, who is represented in the field by her energetic son. 71 HUNTING COVERT-OWNERS. 22 1 Amongst county magnates, Colonel Lockwood oc- casionally lightens his Parliamentary labours with a day's hunting, and when hounds visit Down Hall, Lord Rookwood bids defiance to "Old Father Time," and returns to the saddle. Sir Charles Cunliffe Smith has two sons to represent him, and Sir Thomas F"owcll Buxton comes out to see hounds draw the Warlies coverts when he is not called away by a Colonial Governorship. His nephew, Mr. Gerald Buxton, of Birch Hall, Theydon Bois, with his wife and three sisters from Knighton, are often out and always well placed when hounds run. Mr. A. J. Edwards hunts from Beech Hill Park near Waltham Abbey, and will, we trust, be joined by his neighbour, Mr. Richard Beale Colvin and his wife, Lady Gwendoline {ne'e Rous), now that they have established themselves at Monkhams. Our list of hunting covert owners would be incomplete were we not to mention Mr. Chisenhale Marsh, though we wish that his cheery voice was heard in the hunting field as often as on the beautiful polo ground which he has, for the last thirteen years, generously provided for the " West Essex Polo Club " at Gaynes Park. The occupiers of land have for their " Nestor" a fine old sportsman, Mr. George Hart, of "Canes," Harlow, of 222 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. whom we give a portrait. He has hunted in Essex for more than half a century, and though he has topped three George Hart. score and ten, he is still hale and hearty, as is also his sister, Mrs. Raincock, of Ashdon, near Saffron Walden, HUNTING FARMERS. 223 whose interest in foxhunting remains unabated in her seventy-fifth year. We have mentioned in an earlier chapter how indomitably the late Mr. Raincock hunted in Essex without spending the night away from his home in Surrey. When he died, in the same year with Mr. Perry Watlington, it was felt that the hunt had been deprived of its two best supporters. The families by whom farming has been most success- fully carried on within the boundaries of the E.ssex Hunt are those of Christy and Marriage, in the neighbourhood of Chelmsford. Mr. David Christy has regularly hunted with the Essex Hounds for more than fifty years, and both of these families are well to the fore in the preservation and pursuit of foxes. The well-known sporting fainilv of Sworder is represented with the Essex Hounds by that most graceful of horsemen, Mr. Harry Sworder, of Tawnev Hall, who unites with Mr. Georg-e Milbank, of Roxwell, in securing the support of the hunt to the Farmers' Benevolent Association. Other farmers, who are not prevented by bad times from joining in the sport, are Mr. Green, of Parndon, Mr. Waltham, of Stanford Rivers, Mr. Newman, and Mr. P'ry, of Barnston ; and in the northern f)art of the country, Mr. Richardson, Mr. Beadel, Mr. Scruby, and the veteran, Mr. King, of Bard- field, may be mentioned among others. 2 24 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. Since the death of the Rev. Frederick Fane, the Rev. George Maryon Wilson, Vicar of Great Canfield, and the Rev. Lawrence Capel Cure, Rector of Abbess Roding, may be claimed as Chaplains of the Essex Hunt. Their guidance is equally safe when they are in the pulpit, and when, accompanied by their daughters, they make plain the intricacies of the Roothings in pursuit of hounds. Foremost among the military members of the hunt is Major-General Sir Evelyn Wood, V.C., youngest son of the late Rev. Sir John Page Wood, Bart., of Rivenhall and Cressing, Essex. Major Alfred Henry Carter, of Tilbury Fort, is an undaunted man across any country. Mrs. Carter also goes well to hounds. Major Maitland Wilson, Captain Ricardo, and Captain Dalrymple Bruce are all resident in the country, and each of them is accompanied in the hunting-field by his wife. A glance over the various divisions of the country, taken somewhat in the order of description chosen in Chapter I., will bring before us the "rank and file" of the field. On the London side of the country we find at Walthamstow the Messrs. Horner — father and son — of whom the former has hunted with the Essex Hounds almost as long as Mr. George Hart. He can still outstay many men half his age in a long hack home after a FROM KPPING AND THEREBY. 225 day in the Roothino-.s, where he much prefers a jump to an open gate. From Snaresbrook comes Mr. Pemberton Barnes, whose mother lives at Haverino- ; from Woodford, Mr. Joseph Borwick, a feather-weight, but " worth his weight in gold" as a supporter of the hunt ; from Chigwell Row Mr. Frederick Green, alread\' mentioned, and his sons and daughters ; and from Chigwell Mr. Alfred Suart, a Hurlingham polo player, and a man of weight both in haute finance and in the hunting field. At Loughton is the present abode of the former master, Mr. C. F. Green, whose return to the covert side last winter completed the enjoyment of his friends on days snatched from the frost in Essex and Fast Sussex. At Epping and Coopersale hunting fLirnishes during the winter the one topic of conversation, and Mr. C. F. Green often revisits his old haunts to talk of days past and to come with such kindred spirits as Major and Mrs. Tait, Mr. and Mrs. Waters, Mr. John Gurney Felly, Mr. Roland Bevan, the " Hunt Balls," Mr. Yerburoh, and the Messrs. Sewell. To the south we find at Dagnam Mr. John Sands, always ready when opportunity offers, with help such as he once afforded to Mr. Anthony Trollope. At Bentley 15 226 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. Mill are the two Misses Moro-an, best in the field of aunts and nieces, and from Warley, just over the border of the Union Country, come Mr. and Mrs. Evelyn Heseltine, often accompanied by Mr. Edwin Caldecott and Mr. E. T. Helme, formerly Secretary of the Essex Union Hounds. At Harlow stand the horses of the Dawsons, pere et fils. This family has supported and followed the Essex Hounds through four generations. Mr. Thomas Dawson, of Shern Hall, Walthamstow, was one of Mr. Conyers's first subscribers and a good horseman. He kept horses at the "Cock," Epping, and at the "Saracen's Head," Dunmow, and always hacked there and back. His son, Mr, James Dawson, lived at Snaresbrook, where he kept a pack of beagles, with which Mr. R. C. L. Bevan used to come out. He afterwards removed to High Beach and hunted regularly with the Essex Hounds until 1866. He thoroughly understood hunting and went well. His son, Mr. George Hogarth Dawson, was long without a rival in the art of being with hounds on any horse. For some years he was unable to ride owing to an injury to his hip received in a polo match at Bishop .Stortford, but his indomitable pluck has enabled him to take the field again. In the neighbourhood of Harlow, Mr. Newman Gilbey, the tenant of Mark Hall, honours the genius ROUND THE KENNELS. 227 loci by making free use of his stud. He is the latest addition, in our hunting fields, to a large family circle, sons and daughters of Sir Walter Gilbey, Sir James Blyth, Mr. Henry Blyth, and Mr. Charles Gold, M.P. These numerous cousins vie with each other in the pro- motion of sport on the polo ground, and in the hunting field, where the ardour of the faultlessly attired "Guy" takes him to the front, though a fall may spoil his coat, or a friend may carry off his hat. Well mounted and hard riding members of these families, from Elsenham, Bishop .Stortford and Stansted, hunt with and support the Essex as well as the Puckeridge, of which latter pack Mr. Tresham Gilbey is Secretary, jointly with Mr. Heaton Ellis. Other followers of the hounds, resident within a few miles of the kennels, are Mr. Edward Exton Barclay, Master of the Epping Forest Harriers, and his brother- in-law, Mr. Howard Fowler, both of Roydon, Mr. Todhunter, a tried and trusted fox preserver, and Mr. A. R. Steele, both of Parndon, Mr. R. C. Lyall, of Hastingwood, and Mr. and Mrs. Weston Crocker, of Hatfield Grange. From Matching Green comes Mr. I'"rnest Ouare. Throughout the history of the Essex Hounds, the name 228 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. of Ouare has been associated with the opening meet of the season. We have noted in Chapter VI. that in 1874 — the year of the death of Mr. Henry Ouare, uncle of Mr. Ernest Ouare — the opening meet was changed from Matching Green to High Laver as a tribute to his memory. Mr. Henry Ouare attained the age of 85, and hunted with the Esse.x Hounds ten days before his death. Sixty years earher the zeal for foxhunting of Mr. Ernest Ouare's grandfather, Mr. Benjamin Braine Ouare, was acknowledged by the presentation to him of a cup with the following inscription : — This Cup was presented to Benjamin Braine Quare, Esq., of Matching Green, in the County of Essex, by John Archer Houblon, Esq., Member for the County, Henry John Conyers, Esq., and the Members of the Essex Hunt, in testimony of their sense of his zeal in promoting their sport, and his polite attention on all occasions. 25W November, 1814. • John Nesbitt, Sec. Mr. Tudor Braine Ouare, son of the gentleman thus honoured, and father of Mr. Ernest Ouare, came into THE QUARES OF MATCHING GREEN. 229 possession of Man Wood on the death of his uncle, Mr. Henry Ouare, and sold that covert to the present owner, Lord Rookwood. Mr. Tudor Braine Ouare died in 1889, /^^,. The Qu.\re Cup aged eighty-three, having hunted regularly two days a week to within four years ol his death. 230 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. Mr. Ernest Ouare keeps up the traditions of his family. So quicls are his eye and ear that he can see the whole of many a good run without risking his neck by cross-country ridinsf. Wlien the foxhounds are not in his neighbourhood, he brings out an excellent pack of beagles, which has won distinction at the Peterborough hound show, and gives capital sport with the stout Essex hares. From over the Hertfordshire border, Mr. Archibald Peel and his daughters, Mr. F. E. Lloyd and Mr. Edmund Pelly are often out on Wednesdays. Turning to the Ongar district, we find at Stondon Mr. Tyndale White, Joint Secretary of the Hunt with Mr. R. Y. Bevan. Mr. White came to live at .Stondon in 1881. We have heard him assert that the Essex ditches at first frightened him very much, and gave him five or six falls every time he came out, so that, had it not been that it was absolutely necessary for him to hunt in the home counties, and he was thoroughly sick, after some fifteen seasons, of the great Kentish woodlands, he should have retired after the first fortnight. However, he soon learnt the knack of clearing the Essex ditches as well as anyone, though timber has always been more to his taste, and like old Jem Morgan, he will go out of his way to jump a stile. A GIFT OF NATURE. 23 1 From Marden Ash, near Ongar — the residence of Mr. Henley Grea\-es when he was Master of the Essex — comes Mr. H. E. Jones, an expert in the combination of huntiny' in the mornino- with enliofhteninor Counsel in the Temple in the afternoon. Instilling into his horses the motto, jVod/i'Sse oblige, he yields the palm of straight riding to none but his daughter, Miss Ethel Jones. The fondness for horses and ouns shown bv Mr. Howel J. Price, of Greensted Hall, is shared by his neighbour, Mr. Leonard Pelly, of Bowes, Ongar, who stables the hunters of his friend, Mr. Ford Barclay, the " globe-trotter " of the hunt. Blackmore is represented by Mr. Hull of " Jericho," and Insratestone by the Messrs. Carr of " Truelo\es." From W'rittle come Mr. Thomas Usborne, M.P. for the Chelmsford Division of the county. Miss Wood- house and Mr. W. T. Roffey. The county town is well represented in the hunting field by the Messrs. Ridley, who have an aptitude — especially Mr. C. E. Ridley — for viewing a fox, either away from a covert or during the progress of a run, which i.s, like poetry, a gift of nature — not to be acquired, but inbred. CHAPTER X. Essex Hunt Races. The earliest recorded races in connection with the Essex Hunt were those mentioned in our account of the mastership of Colonel John Cook, when a silver cup was presented to be run for by gentlemen and farmers living within the limits of the hunt. Two or three successful races for the cup were run on Galleywood Common, where a race-course had existed for many years before Colonel Cook's arrival in Essex; but, in 1812, the hunt races were abandoned, as there was a lack of entries, and the race-course was under repair. After this, for sixty-four years, we find no trace of Essex Hunt Race Meetings, though the members of the " C. C. Club" occasionally got up a point-to-point race, starting from near Weald Hall and finishing opposite their head-quarters at the Sun and Whalebone. One of these races was ridden by Mr. John Stallibrass on a horse belonging to Mr. Edward Boards, against Jem Cassidy, who rode THE FIRST RUNDELLS MEETING. 233 for another member of the Club. When passing Mr. George Hart's house at Canes, Mr. StalHbrass was at least one-third of a mile ahead, but Cassidy, whose horse refused the brook, kept on his line, and, no doubt to his agreeable surprise, found Mr. Boards' horse lying in the last ditch thoroughly pumped out, and his rider calmly smoking a cigar, not expecting to see any more of his opponent, who was merrily cheered for carrying out the old motto of " Never give up. " Of late years, race meetings have been held by the Essex Hunt at Rundells, between Harlow and Epping. The first of these meetings, held on March 28th, 1S76, was described as follows in the Essf.v Hcrixld : — "The Essex Hunt. ' ' Private Steeplechase Alee ting. " One of the prettiest country race meetings often witnessed was that which took place on Tuesday last, in connection with the Essex Hunt ; and judging from the success with which it was attended, there is little doubt but that the members of the Hunt will look forward to a similar gathering to wind up each season in future. " The meeting arose out ol a wish expressed by Mr. Robert Wood and Mr. Hervev Foster, when re- 234 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. turningr from a recent run with the hounds, to have a match. To give practical expression to this desire, Mr. fames Scruby readily offered the use of some of his meadow land at Rundells. The idea was then taken up by other prominent members of the hunt, and under the guiding influence of Mr. Loftus Arkwright, the popular master, Major-General Mark Wood, Lieutenant-Colonel Howard, Mr. Hervey Foster, Mr. R. Wood, Mr. P. Nickalls, and Mr. J. Scruby, the original match grew into a well-proportioned meeting of five events. " Rundells afforded every opportunity for securing a course representative of a run across country, and the stewards must be congratulated upon the very excellent line fixed upon and laid out, regard evidently having been had to the picturesque in the selection. The course was of a circular form, and commencing on some rising ground on the Harlow side, descended rather sharply into a pleasant vale (which ran about midway through the course), and then continued by a rather stiff ascent to the rising ground on the Epping side, where was the water jump marked by a fence ; the water was about sixteen feet wide. The line then drew down again into the vale and up a very sharp incline, with a fence just on the brow, to the upper ground on the Harlow side. In the A SELECT GATHERINC. 235 case of the two first events, the distance was about two and a halt miles, which was accomplished by t^'oing twice round the course and continuing- on it for a certain distance a third time, until descending the hill from the Harlow side to the vale, alony- which extended a capital straight run in. There were no fewer than twenty fences and two water jumps. In the other three events, the distance was about two miles, and the start was on the hill on the lapping side, just beyond the water. " The weather being favourable and the locale being about midway between Epping and Harlow, a large company was attracted to the meeting, which may claim to be the beau ideal of a country meeting, for while the numerous coaches and carriages laden with ' fair women and brave men,' which were drawn up along- side the course in the vale, indicated the presence of the best families of the neighbourhood, the strong force in which the yeomen and tradesmen of the district appeared, testified to their appreciation of the venture, while the betting fraternity and those representatives of a more objectionable profession who generally favour these gatherings in such strong numbers were conspicuous onlv bv their absence. 236 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. " From every point an excellent view could be obtained of the races throughout, and the scene from the stewards' tent was a most exhilarating- one. Owing-, however, to the fall of rain on Monday night, the going was terribly heavy, the meadows being in such a spongy state that the horses sank at each stride almost up to their fetlocks. Especially was this the case up the ascent to the height on the Harlow side, the awk- ward fence on the brow being an obstacle which sorely tested the stamina of the animals after the strain to breast the rise. " Although several mishaps took place, no injury occurred to either riders or horses to mar the pleasure of this most successful inaugural meeting. The stewards were Mr. L. Arkwright, Major-General Wood, Lieutenant- Colonel Howard, Mr. Hervey Foster, and Mr. P. Nickalls, who were all upon the ground and exerting themselves to the utmost to secure a successful issue, the General espe- cially distinguishing himself as the Admiral Rous of the meeting, whose decision was accepted as readily as his advice was sought upon any moot point. Mr. R. Wood efficiently discharged the duties of hon. secretary ; Mr. J. Scruby gave general satisfaction as judge ; and Lieutenant-Colonel Howard was all that could be desired as starter. THE FIRST RACE AT RUNDELLS. 237 " Mr. Superintendent Simpson and Mr. Inspector Robinson were present with a posse of constables. " The Light Weight Hunters Steeplechase. A cup, value £10, for horses, the property of gentlemen, that have been regularly hunted with Mr. Arkwright's hounds since January ist, 1876, and have never won a race value /20 ; list.; about 2k miles; one sovereign entrance to the fund. Mr. Nickalls' Conquest, list. 2lb. (Mr. G. F. Court) ... i Mr. H. Foster's Hilda, list. (Owner) ... ... ... 2 Mr. Wood's Glenfishie, list. I lib. (Owner) o Mr. Daniell's Templar, I ist. (Owner) ... ... ... o Mr. T. Harper's Zisca, list. 2lb. (Owner)... ... ... o " Hilda made the running, with Glenfishie and Con- quest in close attendance. At the fourth fence Glenfishie ran into first place, luit at the water jump Hilda regained premier position, anil showed the way up the terrible in- cline towards the starting point, and cleverly took the nasty fence on the brow just in advance of Glenfishie, who slipped and fell at the obstacle, and got so fixed in the ditch that it was not releasetl until the race was nearly over. This was rather unfortunate, as the horse was going with great gamenes.s. Templar, witnessing the fall of Glenfishie, most persistently refused to attempt the fence, despite the determined efforts of Mr. Daniell, and he was obliged to retire. In the meantime, Conquest cleared the obstacle, and made it v(>ry warm for Hilda, 238 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. and on coming to the water a second time, Conquest went to the front, and thouL^h Hilda, gamely responding to the gallant riding of Mr. F"oster, repeatedly challenged its antagonist, Mr. Court brought Conquest in an easy winner by five lengths. Zisca, which was soon out of the race, did not pass the post. " The Welter Cup, value £"10, for horses, the property of gentlemen, that have been regularly hunted with Mr. Arkwright's hounds since January ist, 1876, and have never won a race value ^lo ; catch weights over I3st. ; about 2k miles; one sovereign entrance to the fund. Mr. Womersley's Wallflower (Owner) ... ... ... i Colonel Howard's Firefly (Mr. Wood) ... ... ... 2 Captain Brace's Welcome (Owner).. ... ... ... o Colonel Howard's Shamrock (Mr. H. Foster) ... ... o "Shamrock jumped off with the lead, but at the third fence Wallflower forged ahead, and going away at a slashing pace, was several lengths in advance at the brook, but, mistaking the course, Mr. Womersley had to return from the bottom to the top of a field to get in the course, which placed him several lengths in the rear of Welcome, who, having come to grief at the water, was a long way behind Shamrock and Firefly. At the second fence in the second round Shamrock fell, and Wallflower, making up its lost ground very quickly, soon passed Firefly, and went THE FARMERS CUP. 239 on with ci loiio- lead. In the meantime, Mr. Foster, having remounted, was courageously pressing on in ad- vance of Welcome, but Shamrock was winded too much to hold out, and fell, a few fences further on, quite blown, and owing to the long rest it made on the ground, people at a distance, fearing that it was dead, made a general rush towards it, but it resumed its legs just as Wallflower came galloping in a winner by twenty lengths from Firefly — Mr. Womersley being loudly cheered. Welcome fell at a fence in the second round, and being hopelessly in the rear. Captain Brace retired. " The Farmers' Cup, value £20, for horses, the property of tenant farmers and tradesmen residing in Mr. Arkwright's hunt district ; the horses to have been hunted with Mr. .Arkwright's hounds, and to have been the property of the present owner since January ist, 1876, and have never won a race vahie £10; i2st. and upwards; 2s. 6d. entrance, to go to tlie fund; six horses to start, or no race; 2 miles. Mr. J. Cutts, jun.'s, Edwin (Yeo) ... Mr. Brown's Camden (Mr. Kirkby)... Mr. F. \V. Chilton's Hunting Lass (Owner) Mr. Miller's Tommy (Owner) Mr. Baber's Tom (Mr. H. Baber) Mr. K. Lowe's Harkaway (F. Firr) " Harkaway went away with the lead, with four in close attendance, and the others well up, but Harkaway falling 240 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. at the fifth fence, Tom went on first, and held the lead until, in the dip, Edwin went to the fore, and was well in advance at the brook, where Harkaway came to grief and never showed in the race again. Camden was going very Strongly when its rider was thrown, and although he speedily resumed his seat, a good deal of ground was lost. Coming up the hill from the v^ale. Hunting Lass drew up with Edwin, and for a time seemed like passing him, but she was unequal to the demand made upon her, and dying away in the straight, Camden raced past, and challenged the leader, but without avail, as Yeo, moving on Edwin, brought him in a winner by three lengths. There was an exciting race for third place — Hunting Lass just managing to prevent Tom passing her. Mr. Miller retired towards the close of the race. " A Match for £^ ; owners up ; about 2 J miles. Mr. H. Foster's Mother Bunch (Owner) ... ... ... i Mr. R. Wood's Snuff (Owner) 2 "Considerable interest centred in this match, with which the meeting had originated. Snuff went away with a slight lead, but Mother Bunch soon drew up, and the pair went well together until descending into the dip, when Mother Bunch assumed the lead, and was a length or two in advance at the brook, but refusing the fence at MOTHER BUNCH. 24I the top of the hill on the Harlow side, Snuff took up the running. Mr. Foster, however, soon brouc^ht his mount over the obstacle, and three fences further on held a slight lead ; but what promised to be a very exciting race prac- tically ended here by .Snuff falling heavily at the fence, and Mother Bunch cantered in at her leisure. It was at first feared Mr. Wood had fallen under his horse, and a rush was made to the spot, but, happily, neither Mr. Wood nor the horse were injured. In this match, Mr. Wood conceded one stone to Mr. Foster. " The Pnrndon Hall Consolation Stakes, for horses, the property of gentlemen, farmers, or tradesmen, that have been regularly hunted with Mr. Arkwrighfs hounds since January ist, 1876, and that have never won a race at this or any other meeting ; catch weights ; about li miles ; entrance fee, 5s. to the fund ; to close and name to the Clerk of the Scales, after the preceding run, in the weighing tent. Mr. H. Foster's Mother Bunch (Owner) ... i Mr. Berwick's Broomielaw (Yeo) ... ... ... ... 2 Mr. Daniell's Templar (Owner) ... ... ... ... o Mr. Harper's Brunette ... ... ... ... ... o " Mother Bunch made the running closely attended by Templar, but the latter again refused the fence at the top of the hill on the Harlow side, and being unable to get him over, iVIr. Daniell was obliged to retire, although his mount took the other fences in capital style, and went very 16 242 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. Strong. Broomielaw then went on in close company with Mother Bunch, and, Brunette having retired through coming to grief at a fence, the race resolved itself into a match between these two. In the dip, Broomielaw showed in front, but Mother Bunch again assumed the lead at the brook, and maintained her advantage to the fence at the top of the hill, where Broomielaw fell, and Mr. Foster, then having the race in hand, went on and won easily, amid loud applause — Mr. F"oster's clever riding and the stamina of Mother Bunch, which thus pulled off two successive races, being the subject of general com- ment. " The Scurry Stahes for All Comers. This stake was arranged on the field, on the conclusion of the previous race, and seven horses were entered for the £"10 stake offered. Mr. H. Foster's Hilda (Owner) i Mr. Kirkby's ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 2 Mr. Chennell's... ... ... ... ... ... ... o " Also ran : Mr. W. Foster's, Mr. W. Lowe's, Mr. Mayor's, and Mr. Grossman's. "Mr. W. Foster's horse made the running, but was soon passed by Hilda, and a very exciting finish ended in Mr. H. Foster securing the stakes." It was originally proposed to hold the meetings only THE SECOND RUXDKLLS MEETING. 243 in alternate years, at the close of the hLintin^^ season. The second meetini^- was therefore held in 1S78, when, ovvino- to the forwardness of the season, it was thought advisable to fix upon March 5th as the date. This year, in addition to the Light Weight, Welter, and Farmers' Steeplechases, the card included a race for horses never previously raced, two matches, and two flat races, of which one was a "Consolation Stakes." In the Light Weight .Steeplechase, Mr. Hervey Foster held the lead on Guardsman till, falling at the second water jump, he gave Mr. Pemberton Barnes, on Peacemaker, an easy win. The Welter Weights afforded the race of the day. After an exciting struggle, Mr. Single, on Once too Often, passed the post in front of Mr. R. B. Colvin, on Bos- phorus, but the race was awarded to Mr. R. B. Colvin, as Mr. Single was disqualified. Mr. Colvin, riding Plevna, was also successful in his match against Mr. Edwards, on Farringdon. In the second match, Mr. Hervey P'oster's Coopersale beat Mr. Womersley's Newman Noeors, after both horses had refused the first two fences. Mr. Foster also wcjn the " Con.solation " Pdat Race on Interest. 'Phis year, Mr. P. R. Tippler made his first appearance at Rundells, winning the Planners' Cup on 244 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. Miss Templar. For this meeting, a temporary " grand stand " was erected, but it was not sufficiently patronised to encourage a repetition of the experiment. There was an interval of three years between the second and third of these meetings. Meantime, Sir Henry Selwin Ibbetson had undertaken the mastership, and under his superintendence important changes were introduced. For the future, the meeting became an annual one, and though still termed " private," it was registered by Messrs. Weatherby, and the results were published in the Racing Calendar. At the third meeting, held in bitterly cold weather, on April 21st, 1881, the master's horses, ridden by the Hunt servants, for the first time took part in the races. A further novelty was the introduction, as the first event, of a Point-to-Point Race, of about i\ miles, one class to carry not less than list. /lb. the other not less than i4st. The race was run in a driving snowstorm. Eleven horses started, of whom eight fell in the course of the race, leaving the master's Multum in Parvo, ridden by Charles Littleworth (light weight), Mr. Hervey Foster's Pilgrim, ridden by the owner (light weight), and the master's Lawgiver, ridden by Fred Firr (heavy weight), to finish in the order named. The other six events were well contested. .Sir TIIK THIRD AND FOURTH RUNDELLS MEETINGS. 245 Henry followed up his success in the " Point-to-Point " Race by winning the Light Weight Cup with Viscount, ridden by Bailey, and the Welter Cu[) with Dobson's old hunter Desdichado (known at the kennels as " Dusty Shadow "), ridden by Firr. Mr. Hervey Foster, riding Pilgrim, came in second for the Light Weight Cup, and won the Consolation Race. The formation of the Esse.x Hunt Club, in March, 1882, of which we have given an account in Chapter VTI., led to modifications of the conditions of the races. At the fourth meeting, held on April 12th, 1S82, the Point-to-Point, Light Weight, and Welter Cups were re- served for members of the club, and they presented the Roothing Cup, for which their own horses were not allowed to compete. At this meeting the weather was favourable, and, although there were no very exciting finishes, the racing was capital. In the first event, the Red Coat Point-to-Point Race, there were nine com- petitors. Mr. Hervey Foster, on Pilgrim, was first of the lisfht weights, and the master's horses. Matador and Multum in Parvo, ridden by Bailey and Littleworth, finished ne.xt in order, followed by the first of the heavy weights, Mr. Roland Bevan, on Sweep. Sir Henry again won both the Light and Heavy Weight Cups with the 246 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. same horses and riders as in tlie previous year. For the Light Weight Cup, Mr. Hervey Foster rode a mare named Satanella, which he had bought from an Essex horse-dealer. She would have easily secured second place, but just before reaching the winning post, she made a bolt for the saddling enclosure, ran on to the ropes, and fell on her knees, knocking down several people, but for- tunately no one was hurt. In the Consolation Race, Mr. F'oster, by admirable riding, succeeded in bringing the mare in an easy winner. At this meeting, Mr. P. R. Tippler increased his reputation as a jockey by winning the Open Steeplechase, and coming in within half a length of the winner in the Farmers' Point-to- Point. Shortly after this meeting, Mr. Hervey Foster took Satanella to Ireland, and rode her at Ardee, where he had often run horses whilst visiting his brother in the neighbourhood. The result was a bad accident. The mare ran well, but in leaping a stone wall, horses in front of her knocked down some stones. On these Satanella stumbled. She fell upon her rider, and he sustained very severe injuries, which crippled him for life. At the fifth meeting, held on March 29th, 1S83, the Point-to- Point Race was won by Mr. Edward Ball's Burke (light weight), and Mr. Frederick Green's Madrid THE BRIGGIXS CUP. 247 was first of the heavy weights. Each horse was ridden by its owner. For the Light Weight Hunt Cup, the master's Viscount came in first, but was disquaHfied for having gone the wron"' side of a flasf, and the race was awarded to The Prince, belonging to Mr. N. E. Char- rington. In the Esse.x Open Steeplechase no such mishap occurred, and the master's horses, Desdichado and \'i.\en, ridden by the Hunt servants, were placed first and second. .Sir Henry also won the P^sse.x Welter Cup, with Mince Pie. In this race, the flagging of the course was not clear enough for Mr. R. V. Bevan, who came in first by twenty lengths, on Mr. .Alfred .Suart's .St. George, but was disqualified for ha\ing failed to keep to the course. A special feature of this meeting was a handicap privately arranged by seven gallant heavy weights for the " Brig- gins Cup," presented by Mr. Albert Deacon, of Briggins Park, who himself rode in the race. The winner was Mr. C. E. Green (i6st. ilb.), on Joke. Ne.xt came Mr. Roland Bevan (i5st. gib.), on .Sweep, but he was disqualified because he could not draw the weight, and second place was awarded to Colonel Howard (i5st. 131b.), on Blue Beard. The sixth meeting was held on .\pril 17th, 1884. Though the weather was bitterly cold the attendance was 248 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. very large. There were seven events, all bringing forth good fields. The huntsman was, unfortunately, unable to to ride, his horse having swerved and crushed his foot against a gate-post about three weeks before. In the Point- to-Point Race, out of thirteen starters, Mr. C. E. Green's Chance, ridden by Mr. Roland Bevan (light weight), finished first, and Mr. H. E. Jones's Chasseur, ridden by the owner (heavy weight), came in second. Viscount was again entered for the Hunt Cup. Mr. Edward Ball succeeded in keeping him in the course, and winning the Cup for the master, Mr. Hervey Foster's Pilgrim, ridden by Mr. Harry Bagot, being second. The Welter Cup also went to Sir Henry, the winner being Desdichado, ridden by Mr. H. Bagot. This year several improvements were made in the arrangements. Mr. J. H. Verrall kindly acted as Clerk of the Scales, and found the meeting so much to his taste that he continued to attend every year until prevented by another engagement. The Hunt Club had a luncheon marquee on the ground, and the band of the First Essex Artillery played during the afternoon. The .seventh meeting was held on April 9th, 1885. The attendance was larger than ever, though the weather was little better than in 1884. Mr. Roland Bevan again came in first in the Point-to-Point Race, riding this year his horse THE SEVENTH RUNPELLS MEETING. 249 Gay Boy. The master's Maid-of-all-Work, ridden by Mr. Frederick Green, was first of the heavy weights. The race was run in a mist, and the two winners rode wide of the true direction on the outward journey until they turned in pursuit of Bailey, whose mount, though kept to the direct line, lacked speed to contend with Gay Boy. A Point-to-Point Race was also run for farmers. Sir Henry scored further successes in the course ot the day, winning the Hunt Cup with Deception, and the Welter Cup with Maid-of-all-\Vork, both ridden by Bailey. The Essex Open Steeplechase Plate was won by Mr. Beale Colvin, on Studgroom, the property of Mr. Albert Deacon, and the favourite hunter of his daughter, Miss Amy Deacon, who in those days was one of the few ladies who rode straight to the Essex hounds. Her death, not o long afterwards, was a blow which ended her father's hunting career. 1885 was the last year in which a Point-to-Point Race was run at Rundells, the reason being that after that date, by the Grand National Hunt Rules, not more than two steeplechases were allowed to be held at Point-to-Point meetings. In subsequent meetings a change of name was also introduced, the Rundells meetings being in future 250 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. known as the " Essex Hunt Club Private Steeplechases," instead of, as hitherto, the " Essex Hunt Private Steeple- chases." The first of the separate " Point-to-Point " Race meetings was held at Great Hassells, Higrh Easter, on March 27th, 1886. Two races were run, each finishing in the starting field. The course was, for the Red Coat Race, towards Pleshey, to Mashbury Mill, and round by Elbows : and, for the Farmers' Race, towards Good Easter, to Bedford's Farm, leaving Good Easter on the left, then to Herring's, round by Mr. Oliver's and back. There were ten starters for the Red Coat Race, which was won by the master's Shylock, ridden by Bailey. The only heavy weight to complete the course was Mr. Alfred .Suart, though his horse, appropriately named Kingfisher, took a dip in the brook. In the Farmers' Race fifteen horses started, two of them (Lady Bell and The Caber) being winners at the Chelmsford Hunt Steeplechases on the pre- vious Tuesday. This race proved very exciting at the finish, as two of the first four that landed in the last field went the wrong side of the winning flags. This dis- qualified the first whip, Wesley, who came in first on Mr. W. Bambridge's Emily, and the race was awarded to Mr. Waylett's Lucy, ridden by the second whip, Jack THE EIGHTH RUNDELLS MEETING. 25 I Turner. Mr. R. V. Bevan, on Mr. T. Milbank's The Caber, secured second place, thoutk, 1848. "We, the undersigned, after due consideration of the respective statements placed in our hands by Mr. Marriott and Mr. Ward, together with a letter from Mr. Payne, dated March 9th, 1848, in which he admits that the country in dispute was only lent to him by Mr. Marriott, to be relin- quished upon his retirement from the management of the Union Hounds, are of opinion that, according to the laws of foxhunting, Mr. Marriott is entitled to the said country upon Mr. Payne's retirement. " N. Parry, " S. Neave." The Puckeridge. The early history of this old-established country is thus given by "Arundel," writing in the Field of P'ebruary 2nd, 1889: — "So long ago as 1725 a few hounds were kept at Cheshunt, near Broxbourne, one of the proprietors being Mr. Calvert, an ancestor of Mr. Felix Calvert, of THE ORIGIN OF THE " PUCKERIDGE." 305 Furneaux I'elham, and of Colonel Calvert, late Master of the Crawley and Horsham fiunt. These hounds Mr. Calvert subsequently purchased and removed to Albury, where he was joined by Mr. Panton, probably father of Mr. Panton, who afterwards hunted the Thurlow countr\'. Mr. John Calvert succeeded to the hounds, keeping" them till about 1 794, w^hen they became a subscription pack, and were called the Hertfordshire. What are now known as the Hertfordshire were orioinallv the Hatfield, of which Lady Salisbury, who, after sur\i\'ing the risks of the chase, was burned to death in her dressing-room at Hatfield House, was the moving spirit. Mr. Calvert and his fellow committee men, however, a[)pear to have paid most of the expenses themselves ; for I find a notice in a newspaper of 1795, that 'the subscription list does not fill, as the country does not attract straneers.' "About 1796, Mr. Panton gave u]) the Thurlow country, the Committee of the Hertfordshire taking to his best hounds, and as much of the country as they wanted : while Mr. Panton enrolled himself as a sub- scriber, and took a hunting-box at Ware. In 1799, Mr. .Sampson Hanbury, of Poles, became associated in the management, and a couple of years later, on becoming sole master, bought the hountls of Mr. Coe 20 306 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. Pigott, who had hunted a portion of the East Essex and Essex Union countries." The kennels at Puckeridge were built for Mr. Han- bury, and he continued to hunt the county until 1832. Next came Lord Petre, grandfather of the present lord. As stated in our account of the Essex Union, he hunted the Puckeridge for three seasons, and then returned to Essex. He was succeeded by Mr. John Dalyell, from Fifeshire, for three seasons, and then in 1838 Mr. John Archer Houblon, of Hallingbury Place, purchased the hounds and installed Mr. Nicholas Parry as master. Mr. Parry afterwards became the owner of the hounds and retained the mastership until the year 1875. He devoted nearly a lifetime to hound breeding, and the excellence of the Puckeridge pack was chiefly due to the care which he bestowed upon it. In 1875 Mr. Parry sold the hounds to the late Mr. Gosling, who hunted the whole country until 1885, and from that date hunted a portion only until 1890. In 1890 a committee purchased the hounds, which were hunted under the name of the Herts and Essex. Disputes arose, into which it is needless to enter. Happily in 1894, under the guidance of Mr. E. S. Bowlby (one of the joint masters of the Essex Hounds), a most amicable arrangement was made, viz., that the Hon. L. J. Bathurst, I'RESENT MASTEKSllir. 307 who for five seasons had been huntino- the h'xmoor P'ox- hounds, be elected Master of the Puckeridge Hunt, Mr. Tresham Gilbcy and Mr. C. Heaton Elhs being appointed joint Hon. Secretaries of the Hunt. The new management has worked well, and there is every reason to hope that the Puckeridge Hunt will flourish in future as in the palmiest days of its past. CHAPTER XIII. Stag-Hunting in Essex — Royal Stag-Hunting — The TiLNEYs and the Mellishes — " LoNG Welleslev " — The Petres and the Neaves. In common with other forests — past and present — that of Epping, formerly of great extent, and known as " Waltham Forest, " or " The Poorest of Essex," held red deer from time immemorial, and they were found therein until the reign of George IV. Unless, however, restrained by high walls or palings, the wild red deer will not live in a circumscribed space, as those who have hunted on Exmoor well know, and so it comes about that, so far as Epping Porest is concerned, the red deer have died out. In the hope of restoring the breed, a stag and a couple of hinds were turned out on the forest a few years ago ; but, as was only natural, they did so much mis- chief to crops that they were destroyed. To-day the Epping Forest deer are chiefly fallow deer of a dark brown ROYAL STAG-HUNTING. 3O9 colour, but roe deer were imported from Dorsetshire in 1883. In the time of the early Henrys we find that stag- hunting in Epping Forest was a recognised torm of sport, and even in those days the chase " brought together them as wouldn't otherwise meet," for a certain Peter the Barber formed one of the field on one occasion, and found himself face to face with a stag which promptly attempted to jump over Peter, horse and all. In this, however, he failed ; the barber was unhorsed by the collision, and escaped non sine Icesione capitis, as the chronicler informs us. Mr. P'isher, in his interesting work on " The Forest of Essex," says that from the time of Edward the Confessor, and probably much earlier, the kings of Elngland hunted in the Forest. Edward \T. complained of the destruction of the deer in consequence of reports that he intended to dis- afforest the forest, and orave notice that he would maintain it as his father had done. Queen Elizabeth resorted to the lodee at Chineford, which bears her name : luit, in her time, the grand old style of hunting "at force" had given place to the indolent method ot driving the deer to "stands," from which the Oueen and her courtiers fired as the c|uarr\- tied by. The records of the Court of Attachments, which was held at Chigwell 3IO THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. in those days, tell what bucks were shot by the Queen and the ladies and gentlemen of her suite. In the latter part of the Queen's reign, the neglect of the laws again led to great irregularities ; and James I. had sat on the throne for hardly a year, when he violently scolded his subjects for their ill -manners in interfering with the sport of himself and his family, threatening not only to enforce the Forest Laws against all stealers and hunters of deer, and to exempt them from his general pardon, but to debar any person of quality so offending from his presence, and to proceed by martial law against those who provoked his dis- pleasure. He had hoped, he said, seeing his subjects knew how greatly he delighted in hunting, that none would have offered offence to him in his sports ; gentlemen of the better sort had behaved as those who knew their duty, but not so some of the baser sort ; there had been more offences since his last coming forth to his progress than even in the late Queen's time, when her years being less fit for recrea- tion, the game was less carefully preserved. Such offences showed insolence and want of reason, and he wondered, seeing he had shown his maintenance of the laws of the realm, that thev should think he would not enforce the GERMAN DEER. 31 T F"orest Laws, which were as ancient and authentic as the Great Charter. Durintr the Commonwealth, the deer in the Royal forests had a bad time of it. A patent was issued in 1660, authorising- an advance ot ^1,000 to replenish the stock. In December, 1660, and January, 1661, certain deer were removed from St. James' Park to W'anstead, and an entry occurs "for takino' 33 Jermayne Deere out of a shipp at Tower Hill and convevinu' them in five wap'Sfons to J r> Oct W'altham fforest with several other charges incident thereto ^148 is." . . . Sir William Hicks, "for keeping the Germaine Deere at W'anstead in the winter [of] 1662," received /, 15. Sir John Bramston, who lived at Skreens in the time of James II., tells in his "Autobiography" of that monarch's keenness for stag-hunting, and of the gallant manner in which he pounded the field in the Roothings. " The Kinge beinge inuited b)- the Duke of Albemarle to New Hall to hunt some ouldyinge red deere, his Majestic went towards New Hall, the 3rd of May, 1686 ; and when he came neere Chelmesford, hearino-e the Duke with the hounds were neere the place where the stagg was harboured, in a wood neere Ricknaker Mill, his Majestic turned out of the road, and went bv Moulsham Hall thither. 312 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. The stagg came out of the wood neere where the Kinge was, and nianie with him, whoe followed the hounds ; but Prince George (whoe had married the Princess Ann), the Duke of Albemarle, the Earle of Feversham, Lord Dart- mouth, and seuerall others, being on the other side of the wood, heard not the hounds, nor knew not that the staofPr had left the wood vntill late, and so seuerall cast out, and neuer reacht the hounds. The stagg made toward the forest, and gott thither and rann almost as farr as Wanstead, where, turninge head, he was at last killed between Rum- ford and Brentwood, or neerer Rumford. The Kinge was neere at the death ; he wtt a coach to carrie him to Brent- wood (where his owne coach was) and well pleased that he was in, and the Lords throwne out. They, not recouering the hounds, went all to New Hall" [Boreham], "whither, after 9 of the clock at night, his Majestic came to a supper. A table was prepared for his Majestie, and others for the Lords and gentlemen, but the Kinge would haue his fellow hunters sup with him, and about a dozen sate downe with him. The next day he hunted a stagg which lay in New Hall parke, and had been there the most part of the winter. After a round or two, he leapt the pale, tookt the riuer, and rann thro' Bramfeeld, Pleshie, and so to the Roothings, and was killed in Hatfield. His Majestie kept THE KING ANT) THE COUNTESS. 313 pretie neerc the doggs, tho' the ditches were broad and deep, the hedges high, and the way and feilds dirtie and deepe ; but most of the Lords were cast out again, and amongst them the Duke of Albermarle. The King was much pleased again that the Lords were cast out, who yet recovered him ere long, and considering his coach and guards were quite another way, they were at a loss what to doe. The Lord Dartmouth aduised to send to Copt Hall to the Earl of Dorset, that the Kinge would come and dine there, and dispatched away a groome to giue his Lordship notice, and so rode easily on (it beinge directly in his way to London). The messenger came, and found the Lady Northampton, and the Lady Dorset, her daughter, in a coach, goeinge abroad on a visit, the Earle beinge at dinner that day, with a great manie gentlemen, at Sir W. Hicks's" [" Ruckholts," or " Rookholts," an ancient manor-house which stood near the river Lea at Leyton many years ago]. "The Countess was much surprised. Her cook and butler were o-one to a faire at W'altham, and would haue excused it, her Lord and seruants all from home ; but a second messenger coeming, she turned her coach, and went home, and sent her coach to meete his Majestie, and by breaking open locks and dores, and with the help of the maides, etc., and by such tyme as his Majestie arriued, had washt 314 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. ■3 and viewed the gardens and house, a very handsome collation was gotten for him. Extreamely well pleased with the treat (he) came toward London, and on the road met the Earl of Dorset returning home from Rookholts. The Earl alighted and comeinge to the coach side bemoaninge his ill fortune that he should not be in the way to receaue that great honour, and makeinge excuse that things were not answerable to his desires, the King replyed, ' Make noe excuses, it was exceedingfe well, and very handsome.' And soe his Majestie came safe and well (to) London, and well pleased with his sport. " In the early part of the eighteenth century the Royal buckhounds hunted the Essex deer. At this time Sir Francis Child, Alderman of the Ward of Farringdon Without, was a thorough .sportsman. He principally patronised the City Hunt, which gave grand sport during the whole period it was led by Mr. Cuttenden, the "Common Hunt," from the time of his appointment to that office in September, 1723. Sir Francis Child came out with the Royal buckhounds when the latter pack hunted in Epping F"orest. On these occasions, at Sir Francis Child's house at Brentwood, there usually assembled a large number of hunting men who were regaled with a sumptuous banquet ; but, sad to say. never a word trans- pires relating to the runs. THE TILNEV HOUNDS. 315 The Treasury Records show that his Majesty's hounds killed in Eppini^- Forest in 1729. thirteen stags; in 1730, nine stags (no hinds or bucks). In 1747 one run only is reported. It took place in Bpping Poorest on August 24th, which " being the day fi.x't for the Ladies' Hunt, a stag was rous'd, near the Green Man, which ran several hours, and afforded excellent diversion.' In the latter part of the eighteenth c^ntur)-, the Epping Forest deer were hunted by a pack of the old " lemon-pye " staghounds, the Royal pack being also of that breed, until the fourth Duke of Richmond presented his fo.xhounds to the Prince of Wales about 181 3, when the old hounds, "with ears as big as cobblers' aprons," were bought by Colonel Thornton and taken to France. It is said that the Esse.x pack were originally kept at Wanstead House by Earl Tilney, and were known as the Tilney Hounds. Before the death of the Earl, in I 7S4, the pack was taken over by a number of the sporting dwellers of the neighbourhood, who maintained them until the management was undertaken by that keen sportsman. Mr. Joseph Mellish. an opulent London merchant, who was supported b\ numerous subscribers, most!) London gentle- 3l6 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. men. Mr. Joseph Mellish's mastership continued until his tragic death in 1798. He had been hunting with his friend Mr. Bosanquet, a banker, and another gentleman, near Windsor, with the kinsf's stacfhounds. Returnino- to London at nio^ht, when crossing Hounslow Heath in a post-chaise, three highwaymen rode up to the chaise window and fired two pistols into it, but with no ill effect ; they demanded money, which was given. The men then rode away ; shortly after, one of them returning, fired a third shot in at the window ; the ball struck Mr. Mellish in the centre of his forehead, and the man galloped off. Mr. Mellish was taken to the Three Magpies Inn on the heath, medical assistance was called in, but the case was pronounced hopeless. He then called for writing materials, made his will, and shortly after expired. The culprit was never detected ; the murder was believed to be from some cause other than mere plunder. After the death of Mr. Joseph Mellish the hounds were kept by his nephew, Mr. William Mellish, until the year 1806, when they were sold to Lord Middleton. The Spoi-itiig Magazine for February, 1806, contains an engraving of the kennels in which these hounds were kept at Chingford Green. At the time of the sale to Lord Middleton the pack numbered thirty-two or more couples. They were taken THE EASTER HUNT. 317 to Yorkshire by their huntsman, William Cranston, who had shortly before been appointed successor to William Dean, that famous old huntsman having kept to his work until he had reached the age of eighty and had broken eleven bones. It has often been alleged that the famous Eppino- Forest Easter Hunt owed its origin to the sporting habits of the Lord Mayors of olden days, as described by Harrison Ainsworth in his novel, " The Lord Mayor of London." Of this, however, there is no proof. A more probable origin of the Easter Hunt is suggested by an article in the Spoj'ting Magazine of April, 1809, which states that Lord Tilney's hunt "was called the Ladies' Hunt, as many ladies in the neighbourhood joined in it. The meetings were in general at Fencepiece, near Hainault Forest, and there was an anniversary meeting on Easter Monday, with a dinner, ball, &c. To this Easter meetino- it was customary for the Londoners to resort — some as invited guests, others as strangers, merely to enjoy the holiday sports." The same writer says that in Mr. Mellish's time, the ball and other entertainments were discontinued, but the annual Faster Hunt was still kept up. Whatever its origin, th(; Easter Hunt obtained noto- riety as an outing for cockney sportsmen. It was ridiculed 3l8 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. in drawings, in verses and on the stage, and gained the distinction of furnishing the subject of a poem to Tom Hood, when he lived at Wanstead (1832-35). He de- scribes the deer cart as — " In shape like half a hearse, though not For corpses in the least, For this contains the deer alive, And not the dear deceased." Returning to the last century, w.e find sporting poets singing the praises of the staghounds. The following extract from verses quoted by Mr. Harting in the " Essex Naturalist," out of a scarce little book entided " The Sportsman's Vocal Cabinet," will serve as a specimen : — " Squire Laughton' was there, with his excellent pack, Tilney Long,^ too, that baronet bold ; The Marquis of Lome, with his suite at his back. In green livery, bedizened with gold. " And these were well furnished with horns of the best, That the skilful ere took into hand ; So kind was my lord that, to pleasure each guest. He provided this musical band. " Will Dean was our huntsman, at Epping well known For riding his hunter with grace, For having a voice of stentorian tone. And for breeding good hounds for the chase." ' He was associated with Admiral Sir Eliab Harvey, of Chigwell, and others in the support of the pack, ' He died in 1794. LONf. TILNKV WEIJ.KSLKV I.ONC, POLK. 319 The \'erses s^o on to describe how " ;i Ijnive lookinj^ stag ' was roused, and ran southward to the Thames, where "his fears made his courage recede," and he was taken at East Ham, in the garden of Dr. Fothergill. The worthy doctor — " Begged for the life of the deer. " The favour was granted, the buck cart in view, We drew the faint beast from his lair. And sent him to Hale End, to join with the crew, Once more in their comforts to share." Within a few years of the sale of Mr. Mellish's hounds, we find a pack of staghounds again established at Wan- stead House, which had become the property ot Mr. Tilney Long VVellesley, through his marriage with the heiress of the last Earl Tilney. This gentleman was immortalised by the well-known line in " Rejected Ad- dresses," " Long may Long Tilney Welle.sley Long Pole live," and we have some recollection of an epigram attri- buted to Lord Beaconsfield :— " Let spacious Wanstead House, well known to fame Resound Long Tilney Wellesley Long Pole's name, But he's not even fit to black your boots, Burdett Coutts Ashmead Bartlett Burdett Coutts." Mr. Wellesley kept forty or fifty hunters and hackneys, and hunted the countr\ in magnificent style. His hounds. 320 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. like those of his predecessors, were not foxhounds entered to deer, but old-fashioned staghounds. The servants were dressed in Lincoln green. Everything was done with the most reckless extravagance. Mr. Wellesley would scatter sovereigns to countrymen in the hunting-field as readily as other liberal sportsmen would give shillings or sixpences. Such was his reckless prodigality that, having acquired by his marriagfe, in 1812, a rent-roll in Essex alone, raised under the influence of war prices to ^70,000 per annum, he was, within ten years of that time, obliged to escape down the Thames from his creditors in an open boat. His wife died broken-hearted ; the custody of his children was taken from him b)- the Court of Chancery ; Wanstead House was pulled down ; and, though he had succeeded in the meantime to the headship of his own family as Earl of Mornington, he died a pensioner of his uncle, the great Duke of Wellington. When the Wellesley hounds were sold, Tom Rounding, who is said to have acted as Wellesley's huntsman, and whose foxhunting experiences are alluded to in a previous chapter, secured a few couple, and with these the hunting of the wild red deer was continued. For years afterwards, at the festive gatherings at the Horse and Groom, a handsome silver cup used to be THE LAST OF THE RED DEER. 32 I handed round, with the inscription, " From Long Wellesley abroad to Tommy Rounding- at home." Latterly the red deer kept to Hainault Forest, and rarely crossed the River Roding'. The forest had ceased to be a sanctuary for them, and at length it was thought best to transport what was left of the herd to Windsor Forest. Tradition says that Tom Rounding's last day's sport with a red deer ended at Plaistow. A note, which probably refers to this run, has been unearthed by Mr. Harting. It occurs in a copy of Gary's " Survey of the Country Fifteen Miles round London," and is in the author's own handwriting. " 1827, Oct. 20. — I met the staghounds at Hoghill House, in Hainault Forest, to unharbour a stag. After drawinof the coverts a short time a fine old statr was roused, and took a turn round the forest away to Packnall Corner, hence to Dagenham, and was taken at Plaistow." He adds : " Red deer to be so near the metropolis I consider as a singular circumstance." It appears from the above entry that, on this occasion, the hunted stag was not enlarged from a cart but foLind on Hainault Forest. The verses in the " Sportsman's Vocal Cabinet" describe the " rousing " of a stag which, when taken, was sent to Hale End. The deer were 21 322 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. often captured and kept in captivity until required for hunting. There were four paddocks for deer at Mr. MelHsh's hunting lodge at Chingford Green, and it is said that a similar paddock existed at Loughton Bridge where the deer were kept, after being caught on the Forest by means of a net a mile in length. We now turn from the chase of the wild red deer, to what Mr. Jorrocks called "the sport incarcerate." In Essex this branch of sport owes everything to the Petre and Neave families. It was in the year 1831 that the late Mr. Sheffield Neave, third son of Sir Thomas Neave, second baronet, began to hunt the carted deer with his hounds. Mr. Neave's age was thirty-two. At first he had the assistance of Mr. Tufnell and Mr. Drummond, but later became the sole master. He hunted the hounds himself; and the old inhabitants are still ever ready to tell of his doings, such as jumping a river lock with a stone coping at Ware ; jumping the river at Shonks Mill, and many others. He was a very hard man to hounds, and is said to have been the first to intro- duce a fashion of flying the banks in the Union or South Essex country ; whereas formerly it had always been customary to do the scrambling business, which, of course, was very slow if sure. In 1837, or thereabouts, Meshach MR. XEAVES FIELD. 323 Cornell came as whip from Mr. Newman, of " Scrippp;," who hunted the East Esse.x and Thurlow countries, as already mentioned ; he was a wonderfully good horseman, with a clear, shrill voice, and was called the " \\'ild Indian." Amongst Mr. Neave's field were many who have been mentioned in previous chapters ; such as Lord Maynard's son (father of the present Lady Warwick), Mr. Tufnell, the Revs. J. Arkwright, J. B. Stane and C. Tyrell, Mr. Hankey, Tom Mashiter, John Stallibrass, Tom Webb, lim Cassidv, and Georoe Orbell. Other " regulars" w-ere " thrusting Jack Hammond," who was as great an acquisition in the hunting field as in the smoking-room ; he always had a good story to tell, and was always ready to lend a horse or a "fiver" to any friend ; Tommy Crooks, the l)utcher, of Chelmsford, who always seemed to enjoy his day : Captain Kingscote, Mr. Lane, the Commissi(jner of P)ankruptcy, who "would charge e'en the Thames if it ran in his way," and who also kept a pack of beagles ; bold Mr. Balfour; "Jack Judd with his neat bit of blood;" " Parson" Simms, who generalh' rode a grey ; " Parson " Billy Tower, who'll stick to McAdam from Fyfielcl to lladham; " John Hill; John Chandlers, North .Surridge, who had hunted the South Esse.x; Colonel Vyse, Mr. Harrington 324 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. and Parson Rush, the latter as well known on Newmarket Heath as with the E.S.H. ; but he never came out for more than a spin, and then went home again. Mr, Neave was not content with hunting only in Essex, for he used to go into the Fitzwilliam and Oakley countries, where he was always welcomed, and in return he always gave them the best of sport. These hounds had a famous run on December 6th, 1833, when the well-known deer " Tom Tickler " gave them a tremendous doing: he ran clean through a pack of harriers and was finally taken in a bedroom at Gidea Hall, much to the annoyance of Mr. Black, the owner. On this memorable day, Mr. Neave got to the bottom of three horses, Teddy, Shakespeare, and Snarl. The same good deer gave them two very fine runs in the following January. For the second of these runs a large field assembled, but only Messrs. Arkwriafht and Fane could yet to the end, the first seven or eight miles being the fastest thing Mr. Neave had ever had. Another famous run was in March, 1843, when " Wildgoose " gave them twenty-seven and a half miles in two hours and fifteen minutes, including two checks : there were only four up at the finish at Aythorp Roding. " Wildgoose " was the best deer Mr. Neave ever had : he was never known to run more than fifty yards down any MR. NEAVES RESIGNATION. 325 road, and was sold with the hounds in 1S44, being bought by some Yorkshire master of staghounds. Mr. Neave challenged them to take him the first time out ; they tried, but he ran clean away from them, and was only taken a day or so afterwards, owing to his having made a heavy meal of turnips, and then he gave them fifteen miles without a check, and was taken in the town of Rotherham. Once when meeting at Harlow, Mr. Neave's hounds fell in with Mr. Conyers, when he at once shut up his own pack and showed them the way, helping them all he could, and then spent the remainder of the day in cursing the whole lot; he hated them and did not mind tellino; them so. Mr. Neave kept the hounds at Myless and the deer at the King William. When huntintj in the Roothino;s he used as a rule to stay at Roxwell. When Mr. Neave gave up the hounds, he was pre- sented with a very handsome piece of plate with the following inscription : — " This piece of plate was presented in grateful remembrance of his .spirited exertions in the fiekl, and of the zeal and urbanity displayed by him as Master of the Essex Staghounds, during twelve seasons of singular harmony and unrivalled success in which he not only secured the cordial support of the owners and occupiers of the land, but acquired the lasting esteem and regard of all. 326 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. " From the Gentlemen, Yeomen and supporters of the Essex Staghounds to Sheffield Neave, Esq., December 20th, 1843." In 1846 Lord Petre was master, with Joe Roots as huntsman. The latter had begun by whipping in to Mr. N. Surridge when he had the South Essex ; after that he spent nearly all his life with the Petre family, though for a time we find him hunting- the Devon and Somerset Staghounds. He died from injuries received from a horse which he was killing falling on him ; he broke his thigh, from which accident he never recovered. After Lord Petre gave them up, they seem to have lapsed for a short time. Tommy Crooks, the butcher, appears to have kept a scratch pack for one season. He had a wonderful voice ; he used to buy his deer from Thorndon. They were rather partial to hunt dinners in those days, and on one occasion, after dinner. Tommy ordered his favourite deer, " Red Rover," to be brought into the room to show his friends, but "Red Rover" seems to have found it too hot for him, for, making his escape by jumping through the window, it took his followers over a week to retake him, he giving them a run every day, and finishing up somewhere in the Midlands. Tommy Crooks had to give the hounds up owing to damaging his leg, and THE HON. FREDERICK TETRE. 327 James Parker seems to have gone on with them for a short time. However, they started again with renewed strength in 185 1, when Lord Petre's son, the Hon. P>ederick Petre, took them, hunting them himself. Before taking them, he had kept a pack of harriers at Writtle, and so was no novice at the game ; he kept on Joe Roots, who turned hounds to him, and later on Jack Barker took his place. After this we find Frank Barker hunting the hounds, besides which, he had the management of the deer — a post which he kept till killed by his own horse, Bird on the Wing, rearing and falling on him at the Islington May Horse Show. Amongst the regulars of the day were James Parker, who had these hounds for one season as well as being Master of the Essex Union in 1853 ; he was a very handsome man, and was a very well-known figure on his grey horse ; Charles Ducane, Mr. Tufnell, Edmund Round, the two Messrs. Reeves, Soames, Lord Wol- verton, or, as he was then, Mr. Glyn, with his favourite horse, Strychnine, and the late Mr. Albert Deacon, of Briggins Park. In 1867, the Hon. h^-ederick Petre was succeeded by his brother Henry, and Frank Barker hunted the 328 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. hounds, the kennels being at Oakhurst. In 1871, how- ever, the master began hunting them himself, and moved the kennels to Westlands. He had wonderful hands, and a great control over his field. For secretary he had Mr. Vickerman, who lived at that quaint old place, Thoby Priory. He was a great man for horse-breeding, and had several good ones. John Collar, who, during the continuance of the Belhus sales, used to show the horses, was whip. Phil Barker kept the hounds and some of the deer, while Mr. James Christy kept the remainder. Amongst the followers were Mr. James Christy, whose father always entertained the hunt several times during the season ; Mr. Collison Hall, Mr. Usborne (now M.P. for Chelmsford), who always had a good horse, though he was particular enough about buying one ; Mr. Marriage, Mr. Page Wood (from the East Essex) ; his brother. Colonel Wood (now Sir Evelyn Wood) ; Mr. John Tabor, .Sir Charles Cunliffe Smith, General Mark Wood, and Mr. Edmund Courage, of Shenfield. Sir Thomas Len- nard came out sometimes ; but he had a pack of drag- hounds of his own, and lived right away at Belhus. Amongst those who hunted with the Petres were two men whose literary tastes drew them together. These were MR. CHARLES BUXTON. 329 Anthony Trollope, who was also a foxhunter, and has already been mentioned, and Mr. Charles Buxton, who came from Surrey to join Sir Fowell Buxton and other relatives, in ridinq' with the staghounds in the style of the family motto, " Uo it with thy might." Mr. Charles Buxton's life of his father gained from Mr. Hampden Gurney the high praise that he would put it into a boy's hands next to the Iiible. Whereupon the Saturday Rcviezv asked whether the old invocation might not be thus amended: "Matthew, Mark, * Luke, John, and Charles Buxton, bless the bed that I lie on." In 1867 Mr. Charles Buxton had a bad fall, and lay long in a darkened room, suffering from concussion of the brain. Whilst there he described the run in which he fell in the following verses :— The Staghounds. 1. Forrard away ! Forrard away Cheerly, ye beauties, forrard away ! They flash like a gleam o'er the upland brow, They flash like a gleam o'er the russet plow, O'er the green wheatland, fair to see ; Over the pasture, over the lea. Forrard away — forrard away ! Cheerly, ye beauties, forrard away ! 530 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS II. How soft lies the valley asleep below, In the golden sunshine, as on we go, Down the long sweep of the hillside bare, Drinking sweet draughts of the vernal air ! The lark is raining his music down. The partridge whirrs up from the grass-tuft brown. Forrard away, &c. III. A stiff ox fence with its oaken rail — Rap, rap, go the hoofs like a peasant's flail ; A five-foot drop — see, the Roding brook. Send him at it, don't stop to look ; Dash through the quickset into the lane Out on the other side, forrard again — Forrard away, &c. IV. Carefully now, at the ditch and bank. Into the copse wood thick and dank ; The violet hangs her timid head. And cowers down in her lowly bed ; The primrose opes wide her golden eyes. And gazes upward in mute surprise. Forrard away, &c. V. A moment's check, one cast around ; 'Tis forrard again, with a furious bound, Mellow and sweet their voices sound. FORRARD AWAY ! 33 I Steady, my pet, at the five-barred gate, ' Lightly over, with heart elate ; Up witli the elbow, down with the head. Crash through the bullfinch like shot of lead. Forrard away, &c. VI. Look at the hounds, their muzzles high ; A sheet would cover them ; on they fly ; No music now, not a whimpering cry — Neck or nothing : we'll do or die. Swinging along at a slashing pace, With souls on fire each risk to face. Forrard away, &c. VIL Thread the hazels ; over the stile — 'Tis forty-five minutes each five a mile. Hurrah for the staghounds ! let others sneer x\t the fatted calf, and the carted deer ; But we know, as we feel our hunter's stride, A man must be a man who with these can ride. Forrard away, &c. The reign of the present master, Mr. Sheffield Henry Morier Neave, began in the year 1885. In January of that year he removed from Hertfordshire to his present residence at Mill Green, and at Easter he was invited to tak(; the staghounds. The opening meet was held at the King William on November loth, when an untried hind 332 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. afforded a fast run of two and a quarter hours. Seven days later, a run of over twenty miles from Fyfield was ended with hospitable entertainment at Sir Charles Smith's (Suttons). Many other good days followed, in- cluding a remarkable run on March 23rd, 1886, from High Easter to Epping — twenty miles at least, as hounds ran — in two hours. The best run of the present master's second season occurred on March 15th, 1887, when a deer, enlarged at Marks Hall, and taken eleven miles away at Shenfield Place, afforded a run of double that distance, in four and a half hours, which was successfully ended in spite of two inches of snow on the ground. In the next season (1887-8) the great day was February 7th, 1888. The following account of the day's sport appeared in the County Gentleman : — "■Mr. Sheffield N eaves Staghounds. — These hounds met on Tuesday, the 7th, at Marks Hall, in the Rodings, perhaps the best part of this celebrated country, and a very favourite meet. A field of some fifty horsemen included, besides our regular supporters, several strangers, and among the latter we noticed the Secretary of the Essex Foxhounds. As the hounds dashed out into the line of the deer, we heard the master say : ' Now for twenty-five miles,' and 'The Pigeon ' soon showed that his confidence THE TRESENT My\STERSHIP. 333 was not misplaced. She went away well towards Abbess Roothino-, but was headed at the first fence to the left. We ran at best pace by Barnish, Pepper's Green, and Chalk End to the brook at Boy ton Springs — about five miles, as we went, in some twenty-five minutes. Here we found her in the brook, after a check of perhaps a couple of minutes, and away again at a great pace, with hardly a check to the end, to the right of Mashbury, by Fitzjohn's, over Dunmow Lane, and then to Warner's Farm, Littley Green and Hyde Wood ; over the brook by Little Leighs, and to the left of St. Anne's Castle, where by this time the field was very select. On by Moulsham, Halland Paul's and Hazleton Woods nearly to Black Notley, and up to her in the back-water of Bulford Mill. From this she went away in view over the line beyond Bulford Station. There was some delay in getting over the water and railway — hounds all the time racing — but the master's chestnut, though dead beat and blundering on to his nose at every fence, managed to let him keep view of the tail hounds. Down the north side of the line nearly to Cressing Temple, by Boar Stye Green, round Storey's Wood close to F"elix Hall, and back to the farm opposite Rivenhall Place, where the hind ran into a barn and was secured." The last few miles thinned the field to half-a-dozen 334 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. beside the master. It is needless to say that these included Mr. James Christy and Mr. William Blyth. Time, two hours and twenty minutes. Point, sixteen miles. This run was said to be the hardest for horses, hounds, and men that could be remembered within twenty-five years. The line of country in the earlier part of the run was much the same as that of the run with Mr. Lottus Arkwright's hounds, described on pp. 146-149. Excellent sport has been enjoyed during the following seasons down to the present time. One of the best days was December 19th, 1893, which was described as follows in the Field : — " Fssex Staghounds. — Tuesday, December 19th, will be recollected as a red-letter day, as we scored a really first- rate run. Leaving Mashbury Mill with a numerous field, we hunted somewhat slowly for three or four minutes towards Pleshey, but coming to a view we simply raced, leavino- Hioh Easter on the left, to the north of High Roding Street — a good four mile point in very quick time. Here the usual thino" with staohounds would have been to stop the pack for a breathing space, but the master never allows this ; and I have never seen these hounds stopped, and attribute their keenness and hunting powers a good deal to this fact. From here, after a semblance of a THE PRESENT MASTERSHIP. 335 check, wc made at a good pace, turnino- at ri^ht angles, for Dunmow. Strikiiii^- the Chelmer we ran down it to the back of Harnston Lodge, where a lucky ford allowed us to cross. Then, following .Stebbing Brook, we crossed the line, and still continuing without a check, we went on at a good pace, and, running along Pods Brook down stream, we came up to her in the mill dam. One hour and twenty minutes, and only five of the field besides the officials there to see. Here we checked for two minutes, and thought about taking her, but she was off again as fresh as paint. I hear that two of the field besides the officials got over the brook with a fiounder, and, going still at a pace, crossed the river Pant on the left of Bocking .Street ; then, passing Bovington Hall, they ran by High Garrett to Froyz Hall, where the hind was taken. A fourteen mile point — twenty-one and a-half as we went. Time, one hour and forty-five minutes, (^nly Messrs. Hall and Blyth to the end, besides the master and two whips." Mr. Neave hunts the hounds himself in masterly style, assisted by an amateur whipper-in. This office has been successively held by Mr. Colley, of W'rittlc Park, Mr. Edward Neave, and Mr. P>rindle. CHAPTER XIV. Hare-Hunting in Epping Forest. After the last chase of a wild stag, deer-hunting in Epping Forest survived only in the cockney carnival of the Easter Hunt. For true sport, there was in future nothing on the Forest to compare with the hunting of the hare. In early days the Epping- Forest hares were hunted under great difficulties. According to a writer in The Field (January 19th, 1895), a humble sportsman named John Osbaldeston (no relation to the squire of that name) kennelled a few couple of miserable harriers in Clare Market, and went down by road to hunt in Essex for several years. He earned a living as a clerk, and in the evening made up the books of the butchers of Clare Market, and they, in return for his services, rewarded him with a small money payment and enough offal to feed his hounds. One horse was stabled in a shed close at hand ; and, on such days as he could command, he and his pack THE CLARE MARKET PACK. 337 set off for the neighbourhood of Epping Forest, hunted for a time, and returned to their dismal quarters, the hounds having their lodging-room in the basement of his modest dwelling. But the sport is worthy of something better than this squalid establishment, maintained as it was in the face of hardship and prompted by a keenness we do not often find now. P"or the last seventy-five years, therefore, hounds have been kept in the neighbourhood of the Forest for hare-hunting ; nor must we forget the merry little pack of Mr., or Captain, Saich in the last century, not to mention several other " cries." About the year 1820 harriers were kept by Mr. Robin- son, of Chingford, and, later on, by Mr. Mills, of Claybury, until, tiring of the sport, he handed them over to Mr. Gore, an Australian gentleman settled in Woodford, who obtained a good number of subscribers to their support. In the year 1830 or thereabouts Mr. Henry Vigne began to keep a few of these harriers in the kennels which had previously been used by the Roundings for their hounds, the rest of the pack being distributed amongst Mr. Gore and other gentlemen. Gradually the others dropped out ; Mr. Vicrne became sole master, and built himself kennels at "The Oaks," Woodford, the subscriptions being 338 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. Still continued. Mr. Vigne's family, which was of Swiss extraction, had immigrated to England at the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and settled in or near London. His father, Mr. Thomas Vigne, was, when a young man, a well-known cricketer, and a member of the M.C.C. Though not a hunting man, Mr. Thomas Vigne was a good judge of a horse and an accomplished rider. It was intended that Mr. Henry Vigne should follow a professional career ; but, meeting with a serious accident early in life, through being thrown from his horse, the choice of a profession was deferred sine die, and eventually abandoned. From the first Mr. Vigne devoted himself to his hounds. They soon developed into a very useful pack which would hold to the line of their hare though a herd of deer crossed in front of them — no uncommon occurrence in the Forest. Fast hounds are required for Epping Forest, where a hare has every facility for making work, so, to obtain the requisite speed, Mr. Vigne procured dwarf fox- hounds from the best kennels. His hunting days were Tuesdays and Saturdays, with sometimes a bye-day, when the master mostly went out on foot. Owing to his popu- larity and his efforts on all occasions to avoid doing mischief to crops, he was not restricted to the Forest, and he Hk.nry \i(;ni:. >rR. IIENRV VIGNE. 339 hunted a very extensive range of open country through the bounty of landlords and tenants. To prevent large fields the fixtures were kept as secret as possible. In his later years Mr. Vigne's method of ensuring secrecy was amusing. The fixtures were com- municated to a few favoured friends by post cards upon which was often added the caution, " Do not let servants know" — an injunction somewhat at variance with this style of correspondence ! A story, for the truth of which we do not vouch, relates that inside Mr. Vigne's hat was in- scribed, " Do not bleed me, but give me plenty of brandy and water." This was his prescription for "first aid" in case of a fall. A life-like portrait, painted by Mr. J. [. Shannon and presented to Mr. V'igne by numerous friends, has been reproduced for the present work. It shows him as he was — a true type of an English gentleman. Many good sportsmen owed their first lessons in hunting to Mr. Vigne. Amongst them were Mr. C. E. Green, afterwards Master of the Essex Hounds ; Mr. Hervey Foster and Mr. Robert Lockwood, secretaries to that pack. Mr. Green's brother, Major George Green, writes of Mr. Vigne : " Good wine needs no bush ; he was a sportsman among ten thousand, and I consider it a privilege to have teen entered by him. He made more boys into sportsmen than 34° THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. any man I ever met. He was strict with us, but never swore. His strongest expression was ' By Gad,' and that I can hear him saying now ; generally, ' By Gad, that's pretty,' as his little hounds streamed away." Mr. Vigne's mastership lasted for about sixty years. He died after a lingering illness on July 20th, 1892, at the ripe age of eighty-seven. For many years before his death he was the oldest master of hounds in England. Since his death his country has been hunted with much success by Mr. Edward Barclay, of Roydon Lodge, who spares no pains to keep down the number of his "field " and to avoid damage to the farmers.^ ' For the contents of the above chapter we are largely indebted to Baily's Magazine, also to articles in the County Gentlemati and W'oodjord Times, kindly placed at our disposal by the Editors. APPENDIX. Correspondence between Mr. Henry John Conyers AND Mr. Richard Marriott. [See Chapter I., pp. 4-5.] Henry John Conyers to Richard Marriott, January 26th, 1831. Dear Marriott, — I am sure you must confess we are unlucky in our weatlier. This is the tliini time we have come down when the frost has set in, and [consideyiiig] the great expense we are at being at an inn, we, of course, have made a retreat again. We sliall be in your neighbourhood whenever the weather is open and mild again. I have no doubt I shall be abused, but that is better than being in Chelmsford Gaol.' We had no cubs to come to in the first part of the year, or else we should have been there oftener. I hear Newman complains all your foxes are got to us. Do not believe it. Foxes may have a brace in it, as for Grand Courts they are felling it, and a hundred dogs in it and a thousand people. — Yours truly, H. J. Conyers. Saturday, 29th, Matching Green. Monday, 31st, Leading Roothing. ' ? For debt. 342 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. Richard Marriott to Henry John Conyers, January 27TH, 1831. My Dear Sir,— I am much obliged by your letter stating your appointments, and am truly sorry the frost should again have prevented us the pleasure of seeing you in this country, as the people in this immediate neighbourhood are very much dissatisfied with you for not hunting the country oftener, and swear by all that's good they will destroy every fox they can. Would it not be better, and more conducive to your sport, if Newman were to draw Foxes, Grand Courts, Boxted, and Nupister occasionally, when you could not conveniently come down ? I know it would meet with the approba- tion of the neighbourhood, and I think would be the very best way of keeping them quiet. So much money and trouble as I bestow upon the preservation of foxes, it does certainly (as may be supposed) grieve me very much to know they are destroyed the first walk they take. You have not been misinformed respecting my determination of not stopping any more this season. I told Newman so before he met here the last time, and every earth was open, as he had occasion to expect they would be. Should the plan which I have submitted to you meet with your approbation, you will very much oblige me by stating your wishes to Newman immediately, as it really is of conse- quence. Although I will not stop the earths, I will arrange matters in such a way that you need not fear running to ground. Perhaps you will be kind enough to give me a line at your earliest convenience. — Believe me, my dear Sir, yours most truly, Rd. Marriott. Henry John Conyers to Richard Marriott, January 29TH, 1831, Dear Sir, — I have to return you my thanks for your preservation of foxes, because I have no doubt I may benefit occasionally from it, though I am well aware the preservation is not for me to benefit by, but it is for the benefit of Mr. Newman's sport. I now begin to see the folly of giving up Panfield Hall for Mr. Newman to draw as well as myself: because I was kind enough to do that, it is expected I am to give up more, and if I was a fool to give up Grand Courts, Boxted, APPENDIX. • 343 and Nupister, your immediate neighbourliood would soon swear h)- all that's good they would destroy every fox if I did not allow Mr. New- man's hounds to draw (when I could not go there) Dunmow High Wood, Marks and Big Woods. By the laws of foxhunting there must be so)ne boundary, and if you luid kept foxhounds as long as I have you would know by letting another pack draw your country would be a certain way of having blank days, and as I had four blank days in the Dunmow country last year, I do not wish to add to the number. If the weather had not been frosty I should have been much oftener in your immediate iieighhonr- hood, and as I cannot command weather, I do not think they ought to be so much dissatisfied. If there had been cubs bred in that part of the country, I should have been there more frequently in the early part of November, but when I knew there was only an old fox or two, what was the good of going oftener ? If I had I should have only had blank days and spoilt the young hounds. It is unfortunate you live at the edge of Newman's country, or rather I should say in my country and that the foxes will not stay in one place. It would give me the greatest pleasure to oblige you in any way except giving up my country to another pack of hounds. — I remain, dear Sir, yours most truly, H. John Convers. P.S. — I am sure I shall feel greatly obliged if you can in any way prevent the fox going to ground, and any way you think proper to do it I shall be satisfied with, and cannot wish you to stop if you think it will injure the earths. Henry John Convers to Rich.\rd Marriott (und.\ted). Mv Dear Sir, — I fear in writing to you in haste I did not make myself perfectly understood. I never for a moment thought you had given me offence, nor did I consider you were in the least dictating to me ; you merely made a request, and I merely answered it, which I am very sorry I was not able to do to your entire satisfaction. I beg leave to say that I never had the least thought of supposing Mr. 344 * THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. Newman had anything to do with the request, as he always has behaved to me in the most kind and sportsmanHke manner possible, and I hope I have done the same in return towards him. I kept hounds Jirst, and I have given up several of my coverts as neutral coverts. All the Green Dragon Woods were mine, Lion Hall and the coverts opposite Mr. Tufnell's house at Langleys, which I gave up to him, and which he could not have taken from me. If I cannot be certain of some country being quiet when I come down to Dunmow, what a bore it is to come so far and draw blank ! Twice this year we met at Thaxted and Sampford to draw Hempstead, and when we came I heard the other hounds had run all over Hempstead Wood, and so [it was] no use to go there, and what would be the consequence if Newman hunted Foxes and Boxted ? Why, in all probability [lie ze'oiild] run to Big Woods and Marks, so that when we came down we should not know where to go as a certain Jind. I really thought when Panfield was given up as neutral that you and all your neighbourhood would be satisfied. I wish I knew who these complaining neighbours of yours are — doubtless some of them have double faces ; when I come I only hear complaints of the other hounds disturbing my country, and then they say there are people want to kick me out to get the other hounds in. Who in the world is it that finds fault with you for preserving foxes ? The fellow, whoever he is, cannot be fond of hunting, and only can pretend to be so. I am placed in a very awkward situation : on the one hand 1 am to have my country disturbed by another pack, or I am to have the only person who really preserves foxes give up the preservation. I hope still to be able to satisfy your neighbours by coming more frequently, and perhaps you will give us one more year of trial, for such a season as this and last was never known to the oldest fox- hunter. — Truly yours and obliged, H. J. C, I am very sorry you should be at the expense of an action. I think Newman's people ought to pay half and our people the other half of any expense that may arise from the preservation of foxes. appendix. 345 The Takeley Forest Award. Mr. Henley Greaves rendered an important service to the Essex Hunt by procuring an authoritative decision upon a dispute which had existed for a long time with the Herts Hunt, with respect to the right to draw Takeley Forest. A committee was formed to collect evidence, and conduct the case before the arbitrators. Lord Yar- borough and Lord Redesdale. Walsh, in his work on " British Rural Sports," quotes their award, "which," he says, "is a lucid and searching exposition of the merits of the respective claims, and deserves to be placed amongst the archives of foxhunting law, as establishing clear and fundamental principles with regard to the diffi- cult subject of neutral coverts." The award was as follows : — " I. Immemorial usage is the common title to a foxhunting country. When the date of the commencement of such usage is known, the right to it will depend on the manner in which it com- menced. " 2. In the case referred to us, satisfactory proof is given that the forest has been drawn by both hunts as long as any living man can remember. The evidence of the Calvert family, as to its belong- ing exclusively to the Herts Hunt, can only be received as a record of their opinion. At the time when the statement was made the Essex were drawing it, as well as before and since ; and in making the statement Mr. Calvert does not say that they did so by permis- sion asked and granted, or give the date and particulars of any agree- ment on the subject. " 3. There is a wide difference between permission and sufTcr- ance as regards a title to a foxhunting country. No term of years will bar an original right of the liberty to draw, commenced on per- mission granted conditionally with a power to resume. An encroach- ment may be neglected for a time, and, nevertheless, afterwards pro- perly and successfully resisted, if satisfactory proof can be given that it was an encroachment and an innovation on former practice between the hunts. But a practice claimed as a right by one hunt, and suffered 346 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. to be exercised by the other for a period of sixty years and more, when all evidence as to the time and manner in which it originally commenced is lost, must be held to establish that right, or a door would be opened for endless disputes as to boundaries. " 4. The fact of the forest having been drawn by the Essex is admitted, and a reason assigned for its never having been formally objected to — viz., that it was a great nursery and preserve of foxes, and then so strong and impracticable a woodland that there was no getting a fox away, and no chance of a run from it ; and that, as it was necessary for the sport of both counties that it should be routed as much as possible, ' the Herts were glad to see the Essex go there and do the disagreeable work, and therefore no objection was taken to their doing so.' This is a very important admission. It is seldom that so clear a reason can be assigned in the origin of a neutral draw, as the case of a woodland to which no one was very anxious to go, but which it was the interest of both hunts to have regularly disturbed. " 5. The neutral districts so established between the hunts ex- tended beyond the forest and disputes arose. In 1812 an arrangement was come to between the masters of the hunts, which the Herts rely on as establishing their exclusive right to the forest, because it is not mentioned among the neutral coverts. The answer of the Essex is, that it is not mentioned because there never was a doubt as to its neutrality, and that the dispute was only as to certain woods outside. In support of this they prove that the forest was regularly drawn by them afterwards. The Herts reply that this was done because Mr. Houblon, the chief proprietor there, became joint master of the Essex, and asked permission to draw it from Mr. Hanbury, the master of the Herts, and a copy of a letter from Mr. Hanbury to Mr. Houblon is produced, in which he says that he understands that the latter wishes to draw ' some more coverts ' as neutral, and that though he was not himself an advocate for a neutral country, he and Mr. Calvert had every wish on Mr. Houblon's account to accommo- date him, and would meet him and ascertain his wishes. What these were is not known ; the words, ' some more coverts,' could hardly APPENDIX. 347 apply to the forest, nor is there any proof given that they did apply, or that any extension of the neutral country then took place. On the contrary, from the care Mr. Hanbury and Mr. Calvert bestowed on these matters, it is hardly possible that, if anything was done, no written memorandum should have been kept : and the probability is that, on discussing the matter, the objections of Mr. Hanbury to extend the neutral country were found insurmountable, notwithstand- ing his desire to accommodate Mr. Houblon. " 6. The forest continued to be drawn by the Essex till 1832, when Lord Petre took the Herts Hounds, and ' claimed an exclusive right to the forest and the other coverts, and asked for a reference.' A meeting took place, and the result was that there was no reference, and that Mr. Conyers was not dispossessed. Again, in 1838, Mr. Houblon, the owner of the forest, became master of the same hounds, and desired ' to have the forest drawn on certain defined conditions, or a reference,' but Mr. Conyers still kept his old ground. It is clear that if Mr. Houblon's father had only got leave to draw the forest conditionally from Mr. Hanbury in 1812 there must have been posi- tive evidence of that fact in 1832, as it must have been known to many. It is asserted that in 1832 the claim was only waived during Mr. Conyers's life, but, as in 1833, the owner of the forest, then master of the Herts Hounds, asked to have the arrangements respect- ing that draw ' denied, or a reference,' it is clear that no abandonment of the Essex claim of right took place in 1832, while Mr. Houblon's demand negatives the idea of any agreement having been then entered into by the Herts to abstain from making a claim only during Mr. Conyers's life. " 7. The reference asked for on these two occasions has now been brought before us, and, after having given our best consideration to the subject, we are of opinion that, according to foxhunting laws, the forest does not belong exclusively to either hunt, but must be considered neutral for the reason assigned in the third and fourth paragraphs. " Yarborough. " November 19th, 1854. " Redesdale." MATCHING GREEN: A Lay Made About the Year 1883. (With Apologies to Lord Macaulay.) Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson, An anxious face he wore, As he watched the crowd that gathered On Matching Green once more. An anxious face he wore, Upon the opening day, For scores of horsemen had come forth, From East and West and South and North, All eager for the fray. East and West and South and North, Have Dobson's cards gone out. And Harlow, Chelmsford, Ongar, Have noised the meets about. Shame on the lazy sportsman Who lingers in his bed. When the Essex huntsman and his hounds To Matching Green have sped. Now grooms and second horsemen, Are pouring in amain. From many a distant parish Up many a muddy lane. APPENDIX. 349 By many a famous covert Where 'neath the farmers' care At even shade the cubs have played In the still summer air. From the once royal forest, Scene now of East-end larks, From Romford, whence run early trains, Heavy with city clerks. From the long street of Dunmow, Where as the story's told. The flitch was yearly given To loving pairs of old. From where the Stort meanders By mart of malt and flour. From where conspicuous points to heaven, The Epping Water-tower. Loud are the shouts where racers Are straining o'er the lawn, Fast are the deer that cross our ploughs To blasts of Petre's horn. Beyond all sports, the angler's Endures throughout the year. Best of all days the shooter loves To think the twelfth is near. But now no thought of racing. Of favourites or of tips, Nor of the " unantlered monarch " Crosses our minds or lips. Unheeded from the glassy pool His leap the salmon flings ; Unharmed o'er stretching moorland The grouse may spread his wings. 35° THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. The duties of our office To-day let clerks fulfil, To-day let others have our briefs, Or swell a client's bill ; And in the haunts of Thespis To-night we'll not be seen, Staring at pretty ballet-girls, We're off for Matching Green. Now at the place of meeting The plot is thickening fast. And sportsmen, who are riding on, By those on wheels are past. Behind two spanking chestnuts See George and Arthur Cure, And that trim figure and neat seat Is Caldecott's, I'm sure. See Bagot, Archer of the Hunt, On Snowball's back appear, And Gibson, from whose coverts We had such sport last year ; George Hart, whom whether young or old. We all find hard to beat. Mills on his famous Polly, And Sworder's graceful seat. Safe on a dark grey hunter. In spite of falls still sound, The Reverend Frederick Fane rides up Dispensing mirth around ; The centre of a laughing group, Beside him are his daughters, Miss Fane, whom rivers cannot stop, And charming Mrs. Waters. APPENDIX. 351 Far from the south, a gallant three Have joined our sport to-day ; Ind, quite oblivious of the gout, Upon his clever grey. Sir Lumley, who on other, fields A sterner chase has led. And face to face with England's foes. Has for his country bled ; And Johnny Sands, no ruffian's charge. His genuine pluck could shake, When prostrate by that cruel blow. He lay but half awake ; Men say they heard his kindly lips Utter no other sounds Than, " Friends, don't let me keep you here. Go on, and join the hounds." Here's Charrington, at Marden Ash, He'll lunch to-day by two ; Here Spencer wears the famous coat. When will he have a new ? Here's Elder with a " Miller,'" That right well grinds his corn, And Sewell knows a maid, I ween, Not long to be forlorn. Comes Edwards from where High Beech Raises its lofty spire. And Hill, to join the Essex hounds, Forsakes his neighbouring shire ; Here's Roly, too (those breeches Are surely not his own). The name of Mr. Eldei's horse. 552 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. But we mourn the loss of Bobby Wood Who to Gloucestershire has flown. To Keppel and the rat-tailed bay, In any crowd I'd swear ; But where's the Lord of Easton ? Where is his Lady fair ? Fresh from the Kentish hop-grounds White comes a mighty swell, St. George, who, though disqualified. At Rundells ran so well. Here, with still vacant saddle A groom leads up and down, For Suart, though on pleasure bent. Has first to go to Town. While could you note their numbers, As on the green they pour, Of Barclays, Fowlers, Pellys, You well might count a score. Just punctual to the moment Surrounded by the pack. Comes Bailey looking fresh and smart, A new pink on his back. Before them rides Ned Brooker, With Crawley as his guide. And at their sterns young Turner, The laggard hound to chide. Oh ! when the spotted beauties Appeared upon the green. What smiles of keen enjoyment On every face was seen ! No lady in the carriages But cried out, " Look, what dears !" No hunter but put up his back Or put back both his ears. APPENDIX. 353 But Sir Henry's brow was knit, Darkly he eyed tlie crowd, And darkly looked he at his hounds As he whispered half aloud, " Those thrusters will be on their backs Before they're well away, Then if there's not a burning scent. What chance of sport to-day ?" And plainly, as the field moves off In a still lengthening line. Now might MacAdam note the names Destined in print to shine. There, forging slyly to the front. Ball on his grey, was seen, And Charley famed for skill to wield The willow in the tented field : And game at anything to ride. No fence too high, no ditch too wide. His cousin, Frederick Green. There's Todhunter from Parndon Preserver of the fox. And W'almsley, just established In his cosy hunting-bo.x ; The " Major "' with moustaches waxed. So killing to the maids, And Calverley released to-day From Warley's dull parades. Here's Lawrence Cure and Bury (Great Lord of Nazing, hail !) Here's Lockwood from his mansion That overlooks the vale. The Hon. W. H. Allsopp, Lieut. -Col. in the Worcestershire Yeomanry. 23 354 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. Where wave the tell-tale willow trees, By Roden's treacherous banks, His frowning bearskin laid aside To join our guiltless' ranks. There Usborne rides without a whip And with unarmed heel. There pleasantly smiles Major Tower — Here jauntily sits Beale, Thrice welcome noble sportsman ! Back to thy native hill ! No more o'er Afric's burning sands. Pursue wild beasts in heathen lands, But hunt at home, and in thine ear May tally ho's ! for many a year Resound from Monkhams still. See Marsh straight from the green-room His cheery face close shorn. And Mrs. A., whose hundred slaves Sigh hopelessly love-lorn. And Deacon equally an fait In quite another line, To wile away the summer hours At match-making- he tried his powers On that famed heath where distant towers Old Ely's stately shrine. I wis in all that crowded throng There was no heart so dead, But beat with a quick throb of pain 'Neath coat of black or red, ' Image of war without its guilt. — "The Chace," by Somerville. ■-■ Mr. Deacon won matches at Newmarket with his horses " Chevely " and " Comical." APPENDIX. 355 No Essex sportsman there but felt How sad it was to see, Compelled to view our fun from wheels, A once undaunted three. Arkwright our former Master, Who, whether well or ill. Long with unselfish kindness Kept on the country still ; And Secretary Foster For courtesy renowned. Take all the Hunts in England Where can his match be found ? Would that these two, with Dawson, Could lead our van to day ! Right from Row Wood to Garnetts Could show us all the way ! What joy after such horsemen To scurry o'er the plain ! Your bard behind their horses How glad to toil in vain. Now at a cheer from Bailey, What eagerness pervades ! The striving pack, hound after hound. Straining to reach the covert's bound, Jealous as love-sick maids. The horn recalls their footsteps Ranging too far and free. As through Man Wood they busy spread With waving stern and lowered head. And to the spot their way they thread Where sit the Ridleys three. 556 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. The three sit still and silent To view the fox away ; Alas ! their cunning is in vain, He's not at home to-day. Our faces late so joyous Are darkening with dismay, For hark ! the horn is blowing out. Echoes the vacant wood throughout. The second whip's too hateful shout Of " get away ! away ! " In Bailey's ear. Sir Henry Whispers a secret word. And soon in Brickhills undergrowth A varmint fox is stirred. Good luck to Captain Meyer ! Who in the hour of need Supplies the wanted animal, We wish him all, God-speed ! Hurrah for Herman Meyer ! Give him a hearty cheer, We'll drink him health, long life, and wealth In his own hunting beer. Thrice the fox skirts the covert Trying to dodge the pack, And thrice in vain essays to break. And thrice is headed back. Till fearing for his life, he steals Away, out of our sight. And Crawley's cap held high in air Alone proclaims his flight. APPENDIX. 357 Then outspake Colonel Howard, Grandfather of the Hunt, To all a word of counsel He spake as is his wont — " Gentlemen and fellow-sportsmen, Do give the hounds fair play. How can they hit the line, with all Those horses in the way ? " But hark ! the cry is " Forrard ! '" And with hat cocked aside, See Jones pick out the biggest fence, And take it in his stride ; Thinks he " These craning duffers Will keep us here all day ; Will no one dare to follow When ' Chasseur ' shows the way ? " Then the fierce music of the chase A welcome chorus sounds ; The fox knows well its echoes tell Of fast approaching hounds. Then that good dog, old Commodore, Streams gaily to the front, And Rosebud shows the Essex Hounds Can run as well as hunt. Then Sutton's baronet ahead Seems riding in a race. And Bailey, tootling on his horn, Maintains his pride of place. Behind him breathless comes the field Still tailing as they go. Shoulders and heads wa'gging above And spurs at work below. 358 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. Now, by the shade of Assheton Smith, It was a goodly sight To see some thirty horsemen Ride in the foremost flight ; So flies a yacht, with topsail set, Running before a breeze. So o'er our heads a driven bird Skims noiseless through the trees. See Tufnell at an ugly fence Turn first his horse's head, And Edward Ball come after him On a new thoroughbred. Sir Henry riding " Multum " Is going well to-day, And Mr. Coope is giving us An electrical display. Watch Yerburgh exemplify A style we rarely find, Bold riding with an eye to hounds. Judgment and pluck combined. Hargreaves with coat-tails flying, And Waters jumping gates. And the Major followed by a form That looks like Mrs. Tait's. And Roffey on the whitefaced bay Charging a Roothing ditch, Into whose depths a nameless youth Head first is seen to pitch. And down goes many a thruster Purled by some rotten bank. And many a half-conditioned steed Lies prone with sobbing flank, APPENDIX. 359 And underneath is hidden In dirt and slush laid low Some brand-new scarlet jacket, Just home from Savile Row. Meanwhile our fox is travelling on, With steady, plodding gait, Twice twenty towling foes behind, And before, a doubtful fate. For heavy are the ploughlands. Sticky with autumn rains, And sadly through the mud and dirt His draggled brush he trains ; And fast his strength is failing. His wind is almost gone, And he feels that he is sinking. But still he struggles on. For he knows near Hatfield Broad Oak A haven of sure rest, And to reach the wished-for stronghold He does his level best ; And now he's at the open earth. Now he has gone to ground. Now beaten, but yet safe below He hears the baying hound. " Curse on it !_" mutters Bailey, " I wish they'd stopped the place. But for this hole, ere curfew' toll I might have killed a brace." During the winter months the Curfew tolls every evening in Harlow. Bailey would doubtless hear it at the Kennels. 360 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. " Oh ! come away, don't dig him," Loud answers Parson Fane, " So stout a fox another day Should live to run again." But now no sound of laughter From all the field is heard, As once again for Man Wood, Our master gives the word. There lack not eager sportsmen, Nor lovers of the chase, For all our best and bravest Have come the Meet to grace. But e'en the keenest spirits Confess their sport is o'er, When we turn to draw a second time Coverts disturbed before, And in those deep and holding rides Once more to plunge their steeds, Forbear, but in the bordering lane. They careless sit with loosened rein. While to the dregs their flasks they drain, Nor listen for hounds' opening strain, But chaff and puff their weeds. Scarce one appears to give a thought To the doings of the pack, As to Brickhills for a second fox Bailey turns slowly back ; And when we find that covert Deserted for the day, And the last summons of the horn Sadly upon the breeze is borne, The crowd that shone so gay at morn Melts gradually away. APPENDIX. 36! But, Sportsman, as thou turnest Thy horse's head to home, Think how thou mayest best maintain The chase in years to come ; Remember to the farmers first We owe the fun all share, Then ride over their acres With discretion and with care. Leave to the Cockney Sportsman, Unworthy of the name, Those heedless acts that tinge our cheeks With blush of scorn and shame. Who with no hounds before him Still over fences larks. Neat gardens and smooth-shaven lawns Stamps with unsightly marks ; He jumps into a sheep-fold, Each gate leaves open wide, An^ regardless of the growing crops He ruthlessly doth ride. But every thorough Sportsman On seeds and springing wheat Avoids when rain has fallen To set his horse's feet, He every field of winter beans Religiously will shun, Though not afraid of jumping When hounds do really run. He, as he skims a meadow Has an eye upon the stock, 362 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. Nor furious gallops near the ewes Or scares the timid flock ; And so by little courtesies He wins the farmer's heart, Yet ever ready in the chase To bear a foremost part. And so for many a winter The huntsman's horn shall blow, And the merry music of the Hounds Sweep o'er the Esse.x plough ; And our's be still a hunter That's fit to go the pace, And our's on many an opening day To greet each well-known face. And when some fellow Sportsman's Hospitality we share, And the inner man is sated With viands rich and rare ; When a glorious blaze of scarlet Round the festive board we sit, And the oldest port is opened, And the largest weed is lit ; And when over mahogany We all ride wondrous bold. And of exploits in the hunting-field Some startling tales are told ; And when affairs in general A rosy hue assume. As wine and wit commingled Go circling round the room ; We'll pause 'mid shouts of laughter. Loud mirth and racy jest, APPENDIX. 363 While a glass of some choice vintage Stands brimming by each guest, With three times three, and one cheer more To drink a bumper toast — " Sir Henry, as The Master, Long may our country boast." Whoohoop ! ! TO CHARLES ERNEST GREEN, ESQ. ON HIS GIVING UP THE ESSEX HOUNDS. April, 1893. 'Tis when the summer slowly dies, In short'ning days, 'neath dark'ning skies, When Nature tells that time is near That brings us to the closing year, Then is the season most lament. The " winter of their discontent." Strange, then, that at this vernal hour. When every tree and every flower And myriad forms of life rejoice. And birds with one consentient voice Pour forth an animated lay, And Nature all around is gay, Strange, then, our hearts with grief oppressed, 364 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. Heave sighs that will not be suppressed. To us tell a discordant tale The sweetest notes of nightingale, And every leaf on trees we pass, And every tender blade of grass Remind us by the green they bear, Where is the Gveen we weep for, where ? Could you but stay, though every hour We yearn to see you back in power, Like umpire at your fav'rite game. To settle some perplexing claim, Aid the Committee in the field By the great influence you wield, Or calm the farmer's troubled mind. Who knows that he can trust you blind ; But now the latest run is scored. Called the last " over," on the board The final figures are exposed. The bails are off, the innings closed ! From Ashdon Mill to Swallow's Cross All mourn a universal loss ; In Braintree the sad news relate, Newman and Fry disconsolate. With bated breath Joe Borwick tells The mournful news at Woodford Wells ; On Hatfield Heath one shakes his head, The gilt is off the gingerbread ; Another strokes his long white beard, On Kelvedon Common he is heard Repeat a sermon from the text — " Why, O my soul, so sorely vexed ? " APPENDIX. 36; From where our County Member's home Looks down on Roden's yellow foam, To where stands hard by Els'nham Hall, A ' " County Member " in his stall, On Epping plain, in Potter Street, Where Wid and Can with Chelmer meet. Where Easton's verdant park extends, Where the high tapering spire lends A charm to Stortford's busy mart, One sorrow touches every heart. Farmer and hind one grief assails. Peasant and Peer alike bewails. The rich, the poor, all, all complain, " Would we could see him back again ! " Oh ! think how, when late in the day. Hounds, disappointed, turned away, On weary roads their feet to press. From wastes of woodland tenantless. When dwindled to a little band The following under your command. Oh ! think how then the magic word Our quick'ning pulses thrilled and stirred " Loftie, there's yet an hour to dark," " May I tell Bailey, Latton Park ? " In every sportsman's heart and mind The name of Arkwright is enshrined. Worthy his sire and grandsire's fame. He puts to everlasting shame Those covert owners who delight To follow fox in headlong flight Sir Walter Gilbey's celebrated Hackney Sire. 366 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. From some not too near neighbour's gorse ; While in thciv woods without remorse Sir Velveteens — takes precious care No vixen lays up litter there ! His wreath should fairer fingers twine To sound of loftier harp than mine ; Yet, if sometimes my straining steed Diana's' path to trace succeed, If sometimes smiling he rehearse A fragment from my feeble verse, Oh 1 let the latest words I write This prince of fox-preservers loudest praise recite. But hark ! to what blithe strain is set Cheerful^ and Melody's duet, And soon the echoing wood resounds With the full chorus of the hounds ; The fox their piercing notes arouse. To '^ boatman and his buxom spouse He tarries not to whisk his brush ; He hears an angry Tempest-s rush, On flight fixes his keenest wit, For Landlord's notice is to quit ; And when, impatient for the fray, We catch the welcome, " gone away ! " Horses fly fast ; a faster beat Our hearts with ecstacy repeat, As each essays to bear his part In the wild struggle for a start. ' Mr. Arkwright's mare. - The names of the hounds are printed in heavier type throughout ; I must ask Mr. Green's kind permission to have a tia'xed -pack out on this occasion. '' One of Mr. Arkwright's gamekeepers. APPENDIX. .^67 O"-"/ But sta)' ! why strive the place to fill Of Beckford or of Somerville ? Better our leisure to engage In study of their glowing page, Where with a master hand they trace A detailed picture of the chase. Yet let me, for a little while, My soul with memories beguile, And fancy aid me in the task, And help my halting verse to ask, As onward sweeps the cavalcade, What actors in this drama played ? " Hark ! forward ! forward on ! " screams Jack, As Foreman heads the flying pack ; On ! on ! through Parndon Woods they race. And Vanguard leads them in the chase ; And, while we watch them from the brow, A Tyrant rules, a Despot now. Gamester makes play, and Fearless flings, Tribute has borrowed Fairy's wings, Till, passing by the Belvoir tan, Bailey notes Driver in the van. Past Pinnacles they forge ahead ; " Running like mad ! " cries cousin Fred ; So stout a fox treats with disdain The thought of safety in a drain. Straight as an arrow, like a bird. Such similes I've somewhere heard. No fitter language to portray How Seymour shows us all the way. 368 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. Far from where courteous or irate, Jostle the crowd in gap or gate, Still with the leading hound in sight Barnes rides a little left or right. How often, if our horse " refuse," The prophet Balaam's words we use. " Had I a sword," in wrath we say, " That sword this stubborn beast should slay. A simpler remedy I give The deadly blade's comparative : My counsel in such case to all, " Send him to school at Tawney ' Hall." O'er twisted binder, tangled weed, Here lightly hops Jack Felly's steed ; Gerald no option grants his horse. Stern vetoes every other course, Yet one full license freely gives, To jump and gallop while he lives. Two riders next to meet our eye, Brethren in peaceful rivalry. They both a gaudy garb refuse. Horses of selfsame colour choose ; Yet, if compared, each brother's steed, For breeding, beauty, strength and speed, Willie will grant without a qualm. The flying Duchess''' bears the palm. Here, gently swinging back a gate. Ponders the Sheriff Designate, How many stone could Midshipmite, ' The Residence of Mr. Harry Sworder. ■ Mr. George Sewell's mare. APPENDIX. 7,6^ Concede to dear old Parasite ; Yet why a match should he desire, We've Flint and Steel, what more require ? High Price, 'tis plain, must ha\e a fall ; No ghastly fence can Jones appal ; May Heaven itself his neck defend. My trusty Councillor and friend ! Long Collin, with a beaming face, Nor draws his rein, nor picks his place ; Hill tops the timber, he can count Artemidorus ' a grand mount : With what a prospect may he base High hopes on his next steeplechase ! And when t'wards Roydon Park we bend. And Hertford's smiling plains extend, The gallant grey - chafes at his rein. Thinking he's close at home again. While on the breezes, faintly borne, Ted dreams his beauties'* hear tlie horn. Stay ! stay ! hark to yon warning loud, Restraining the too eager crowd, As hounds a moment pause in doubt, The next, range busily about, With curious nose and waving stern Trace out their quarry's sudden turn ! ' Mr. R. Hill's horse. - Mr. Howard F'owlei-'s horse. ' Mr. Edward Barclay's harriers. 24 J/' THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. Now, hold 1 I pray you, Jim or Jack ! Urge not too soon the spreading pack. Let Pirate rove, let Striver try, Let Freeman hunt at liberty ; No sounding flail, no threatening rate Scare Modesty or Delicate ; Leave Beauty to her own sweet will, Let Diligent with Patience still, And Wisdom search, let Trespass stray, Gaylass and Wanderer have their way. Alas ! they range the field in vain, Yon flock have left a deadly stain ; Tlie huntsman each appealing eye Invokes to solve the mystery. Quick as a thought, like lightning's speed, He drives the rowels in his steed, Utters one cheer, emits one blast. Full gallop makes a forward cast. It may not be ; hounds give no sign, Silent they follow Bailey's line. " No fox would dare to cross that vale." " He's back," quoth Quare, " upon his trail. And see, a hound still running mute, See Darter up that furrow shoot ! — Hold, eager horsemen ! still untaught That pressing hounds must spoil your sport One moment, till they're on the scent 1 Watch them, with wavering intent Scarcely a Doubtful note endorse. But when that other speaks, of course All score to cry in glad surprise. ArrKNDix. Trueman, they know, can tell no lies. Now Pageant shows upon the scene, Lawyer and Medlar intervene. Close handy little Barmaid waits. Gossip her wondrous tale relates, How Tuneful, Sonnet, Truelove, sings ! With Ranter's voice the welkin rings, Till over Nazing, bending south, The music swells from every mouth. But come, oh come, ye heavenly Nine, Come, aid this lowly lay of mine ! How shall I tune this falt'ring lyre, So faintly burns my youthful fire ? With gathering years, and tresses grey. Such theme unequal to essay. How not provoke some gallant's jibe, Daring our Amazons describe ? To her the place of honour yield. Whose gracious smile adorns our field, Who not unmindful of her Guild,' To thread her way 'cross countr\- skilled. Cuts out the work for man)- a mile, A pattern in the smartest style ; Her high-bred chestnut, proud so fair A burden on his back to bear. Rules with light touch and gentle hand The loveliest lady in the land. That she should dwell in neighb'ring shire, Essex with envy nmst inspire, Whose generous openhanded lord Scorning to heap a useless hoard. y/ Lady Brooke's Needlework Guild. 0/ ■ THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. Looses liis purse-strings in support Of Essex Hounds and Essex sport, Nor yet the greater boon denies, But when the fox his fastest flies, Grants us to see his lady's face Among the foremost in the chase. Like graceful ships upon the sea, That spread their canvas, fair and free. And speed responsive to the gale, When meaner craft must shorten sail, So when we feel the warning throb, When vexed our ear with choking sob, Onward o'er ditches deep and wide, Onward o'er plough and pasture glide Fair riders, without fuss or flash. From Bentley Mill and Harden Ash. Fain would I sing ; yet how set forth Her sprightly charms, her various worth ? Who many parts has played with ease, In none has ever failed to please ; Where songs resound, feet lightly glance, She leads the chorus and the dance, Nor with less aptitude to trace Each turn and tremor of the chase, Each incident can she recall, Say where the check, and how the fall ; No more, should she but deign to write, MacAdam durst his tales indite. Ye Muses nine, encourage me, While singing of our Graces three ; In every run they score, I'm told, They're often out, and always bold ; APPENDIX. May I let slip ? — say, what a catch 'Twould be with such to make a match : (Fie ! Elder, fie ! how wrong ! how wicked ! To pun upon the game of cricket !) si: * '^i ':■■ By this the pace has told its tale, The stoutest steeds begin to fail, With such deep ground, so holding scent. The greatest gluttons cry content. Abr'am' among the faithful few, Waters and Waltham wait on you, As still your lab'ring beast you urge, When hounds from Cobbin brook emerge, Till pausing at some gaping drain. Obedient to your tight'ning rein, Although he safe his burden bears, The Priest- had almost said his prayers. The day will come, when our Q.C., With awe and wonder, we shall see. Seated in glory near the Strand, Among the judges of the land — Omen of coming greatness meet, We see him landed on his seat. Splashed head to foot, his scarf awry, Is this our nattj- Secret'ry ? And many a gallant, who at morn Came forth in raiment bright, On capering courser proudly borne, Behold him ! now, at night, ' Abraham, Mr. " Rix " Caldwcirs horse. - Mr. Green s horse. 374 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. Vainly press on his weary mount, Hat bent and broken past account, In a most piteous plight ! With bleeding visage, scarred by thorn All mud and sweat, his breeches torn, A truly sorry sight ! How welcome, when in such a mess, To every sportsman in distress. The Admiral's signal, " Steer to port," (Or Gingerbrandy some report.) Ah ! who survive of the old crew ? Dear brother Ned can scarce pursue ! Hans,' haben Sic genug gehabt ? My Snowstorm - blows and stops abrupt, And Yerburgh thinks how cunning he To post his second horse at three ; Yet, when to fence that horse demurred, He almost wished he had a third ! Smiling, yet anxious, Johnny Sands, Where we may hope to end demands. Will Randolph run to the Transvaal, Or what far country. Prodigal ? Lead Phcenix, Waverley by turns. Great Scot ! it is the land of Burns." He's beat ! he scarce can crawl, I swear ! Hear Ernest Ridley loud declare ; And, as hounds stream across the park. Thinks Jim, the Forest is his mark. Ne'er shall he reach its depths, I'll bet His mask shall grace my saddle yet. Mr. Frank Ball sometimes recites the poem of Hans Breitmann. The Author's horse. ' Copt Hall, in the occupation of Walter Burns, Esq. APPENDIX. Fast flies he forward, or at least As fast as he can urge his beast, Straight for the bord'ring ride he makes, His thong's sharp crack its echoes wakes ; The hst'ning fox catches the sounds. Turns back on the pursuing hounds ; One final twist ! one struggle more ! His race is run ! his day is o'er ! Old Grappler has him by the brush ! His vitals feel a Fury's tush ! He fights his foes with latest breath. Brave beast ! ' unconquered e'en in death ! Enough ! why tediously prolong The numbers of this simple song ? Would it were worthier to express JMy deep abiding thankfulness. My gratitude to you reveal, The sense of all I think and feel ! Deep graved upon my inmost heart, Ne'er shall that grateful sense depart. But tell how in my darkest day, When sore beset on life's rough way. Your gentle smile, your kind blue eye, Revived me in my misery. Past are those happy Sabbath days. When gathered round the cheerful blaze. We sipped the tea, and told the tale, 'Neath that snug roof at Coopersale, 3/:) ' If this should seem an unsportsmanlike ending to a run, it must be remembered that Epping Forest is full of holes, into which a beaten fox might creep, so that Jim's action is nothing more than riding forward to prevent the fo.\ getting to ground close in front of hounds ; moreover, in the run from which the idea is taken, the fox made use of other opportunities, escaped via Epping, and was eventually killed near Harlow Park. 376 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. How this one funked and that one fell, How some went home and some went well ; Who smiled on who ; whose latest joke Had made us laugh enough to choke ; Who was that stranger ; and, ah ! who The girl who nearly jumped on you. Say by what grace of gentle mind, What sense of sympathy refined, Or what sweet influence your wife Will aid you in a London life ? Will Crawley, lapsed from nobler state. Attend the sales at Albert Gate ? And idly lounge about the Row, Watching the riders come and go ? Or wander aimless in the street, Until some pictured sporting feat Airest his eye, and make him stop. Long pond'ring, outside Fores's shop ? Oh ! in that hour, when none intrude. How will you cheer your Solitude ? Your Pastime lost, your Passion gone. Left only grey old Wellington,' Methinks that, e'en his glassy eye In that sad hour will scarce be dry ! Translated to " another place," Sir Henry, Baron Rookwood's face, Not its mere counterfeit displayed ' Mr. Green has the head of Wellington stuffed. APPF.NniX. m By limner's cunning art ' portrayed, But, mustering at the merry meet, Still may we sometimes hope to greet. Old Conyers long has gone to ground Those lovers of the horse and hound. Father and son, the Arkwrights sleep A slumber so profound and deep, They will not hear the blast of horn Till roused on Resurrection morn. But you ! in manhood's golden prime, Not by the cruel liand of time. Nor duties of the State removed From all who loved you, all you loved ! Dear Charlie ! this our earnest prayer. Our sport with you once more to share ; While memory shall keep ever green, The thought of all we've lost, the glories that have been Lord Rookwood, Mr. Conyers, and Messrs. .'Xrkuri.sihl were former .Masters of the Esse.\ Hounds. The first has had his portrait presented to him. INDEX. Accidents : Arkwright, Mr. L., 152 ; Bniley, 204, 207, 208 ; Foster, Mr. H., 246; Trollo|ie, Mr. A., 162. Advantages of foxhunting, 103. Agricultural depression, 28, 203, 2ig. Alarm of poison, 209. Annual meetings, 60, 134, 139, 172, 174, 176, 1S5, 203. Arkwright family, II ; Arkwright, -Mr. K. , buys Mark Hall, II. Attendance at meets, 137. Award as to Takeley Forest, 345-347. BOL'.NDARIES of Essex country, 2, 3 ; Essex Union country, 267. Brooks in Essex, 6. Broomfield kennel, the, 46. "C. C'Club, the, 139. Cambridgeshire hounds under Mr. Ul-hu and Gen. Barnell,47. Chaplains of the Essex hunt, the, 224. Charlton hunt, the, 34. Chelmer, River, 3, 154. Chelmsford, 2 ; Junction of three hunts at, 4. Chimney, fox in a, 173. City of London Tavern, meetings at, 60. Clashing of packs in Essex, 33 ; in Sussex, 34. Club, formation of Essex Hunt, 245 : the "C. C," 139. Common Hunt, office of, 314. Connaught, Duke of, and his hunting whip, 27S; hums with Es.sex Union, 278 ; Blooded, 278. Correspondence between Mr. H. J. Conyers and Mr. R. Marriott, 341-344. Country scats in Essex Hunt (and see "Country seats" iit/ra), 7. Coverts, principal, in Essex Hunt, 15 et seij. ; in Essex Union hunt, 2S5 et seq. [atid see " Coverts'' infra). Cricket match between the Puckeridge and Essex Hunts, «95- Crows Heath Kennels, the, 269. Cup presented to Mr. B. B. Quare, 228, 229. Danuury coverts, good run from, 290; kennels, the, 268; built by Mr. C. C. Parker, 271. Deer in Epping Forest, 30S el sey. Dengie Hundred, the, 287. Dispute between East Essex and Essex Union, 302 ; between the Rev. F. Fane and the Rev. J. Arkwright, 130. Ditches, Roothing, 24 ; described by Col. Cook, 24 ; " Root," 24, 25. Down Hall library foxes, 135. Driving instead of riding to hounds, 107, I53- Duke of Wellington's high opinion of fox-hunting, the, 103. Early Essex Hunt Races 60 ; early start, an, 173. Epitaphs on horses, 114. Epping Forest, stag hunting in, 308 et seq. Essex Hunt Annual Meetings (see "Annual Meetings.") Essex Country, the, i et set]. ; railway lines in, I ; former extent of, 24 ; boundaries of, 2, 3 ; Col. Cook on, 59. Essex, early hunting in, 30 et seq. ; Essex experiences, Mr. White's, 230; Essex "field" reviewed, the, 219; Essex Hunt Button worn by Lady Warwick and Waters (Mrs.), 134; Essex Hunt, Friday Country, 20; how hunted, 15 ; Essex Hunt, Monday Country, 15 ; foxes scarce in some parts, 2, 17 ; Essex Hunt, origin of, 52 ; Wednesday Country, 17; Northern limits of, 219; Saturday Country, 21 ; Essex Hunt Club and Committee, the, 177 ; Essex Hunt Club formed, 177, 245 ; Essex Hunt Club, inaugural dinner, 179 ; Essex Hunt Club Secretaries, the, 178, 179 ; Essex Hunt Club "Thirty guinea rule," the, 179, 203; Essex Hunt Rates at Rundells, 232, 265; abandoned on account of death of Mr. Foster, 252 ; proposed abandonment of, 264 ; Essex Hunt Races, early, 232 ; East Essex and Essex Hunts combined, 255; Essex Hunt Races, hunt servants ride the master's horses, 244 : hunt servants give up riding at, 256 ; luncheons at, 25S ; Prince of Wales's horse runs at, 261 ; Essex Hunt Club Private Steeplecha.ses, first called the, 250; Essex Hunt Private Steeplech.ases, name changed from, 250: 38o INDEX. registered in the Racing Calendar, 244 ; Essex Subscrip- tion fox hounds, 46 ; Essex East Country, early history of, 300-1 ; early AI.F.H.'s in, 29S ; Essex (East) Hunt, 298 ; founder of, 298-9 ; Essex (South), formed from Lord Petre's country, the, 271 ; Essex Union country described, 267. Farmers' Benevolent Association, the, 223. " Flying the banks " (Mr. Neave), 322. Gai.i.eywood Common, Races on, 232. " Gelert " on Mr. C. Newman, 299. Hard riders, a lesson to, 136. Harlow Bush Rooms, 39. Herts and Essex hounds, 306. Horse case, Mr. H. G. Greaves witness in a, 117 ; horses, epitaphs on, 114. Houblon family, the, 10. Hound-van, the, 112. Hunting family, an old, 226. " Invincibles," the, 33, 34. James I.'s staghunting in Epping Forest, 310. James H., staghunting, 311. Kennels, Mr. Conyers's, 4 ; Essex, 5, 125 ; Loid Petre's, 26S ; Essex Union and South Essex, 269, 271, 272, 274, 277, 293 ; Puckeridge built, 306 ; Essex supervised by Jlr. L. Arkwright, 167 ; slag hounds, 315. King William Inii, 22, 136, 189. Ladies in the field, 210. Lady rider and Mr. Green, the, 212. Leicestershire experience, 324. Lesson to hard riders, a, 136. Letter (satirical) by the Rev. F. Fane, 126. London contingent, the, 139, 140, 141. Maynard, 2nd Visct., a fox preserver, 8. Mucking Kennels, the, 269. Names. Country Seals : — Belhus, 274, 278, 284, 289 ; Bishop's Hall, 7, 12, 16, 198, 209. Coopersale House, 35 : Copt Hall, 4, 5, 7, 8, 80, 108, iSo, 189, 207, 313. Dagnam, 17, 162, 225 ; Down Hall, 7, 12, 19, 135, 151, 166, 171, 172, 179, 1S3, 1S4, 187, 188, 204, 208, 209, 221. Easton, 6, 7, S, 81, 175, 205, 220. Forest Hall, 7, 13, 21. Gaynes Park, 15, 16, 156, 207, 221 ; Gilston Park, 215. Tiallingbury, 7, lo, 220. Langleys, 7, 13, 14, 81, 206, 344 ; Liston Park, S3. Mark Hall, 7, II, 38, I2j, 146, 207, 217 ; Moor Hall, 18, 151, 166, 193, 195; Myless, 17, no, 116, 129. Skreens, 7, 13, 14, 21, 95, 135, 202, 219, 294, 311 ; Slubbers, 44, 285 ; Slurmer Hall, 69. Tendring Hall, 30, 31, 43 ; Thorndon Hall, 268. Wanstead House, 71 ; Warlies, 17, 221. Coverts. — Blackmore Highwoods, 15, 116, 183, 200, 201, 204, 209, 270, 294; Boxted, 5, 342; Brick-kilns, 19, 57,93. "34. '54. 356- Canes Wood, 18, 134, 135, 189 ; Canfield Hart, 26, 42, 72, 107, 139, 187, iSS, 202, 208; Curtis Mill Green, 16, 17, 142, 155, 20S, 209. Dunniow Highwoods, 20, 93. Epping Forest, 15, 152, 157, 181, 193, 207, 216, 30S, ct seq. Foxes, 5, 20, 342 ; Garnetis, 26, 157, 355. Grand Courts, 4, 71, 341, 342 ; Hadleigh Wood, 290. Haiuault Forest, 143 ; Harlow Park, 18, 41, 127, 134, 173, 206, 207, 216 : Hempstead, 20, 82, 15S, 344. Latlon Park, 18, 42, 108, 134, 173, 175, 182, 185, 207, 212, 365; Leaden Wood, 22, 56, 295; Lion Hall, 4, 146, 344; Lord's Wood, 22, 82, 84, 154, 171, 200; Loughton Shaws, 16, 198; Lubberhedges, 20, 165, 175, 184, 186. Man Wood, 19, 42, 57, 82, 93, 134, 154, 204, 229, 355 ; Moulsham Thrift, 4, 270. Norscy Wood, 271, 290; Norwood, 19, 154, 156. Old Park, 26, 56, 72, 73, 154 ; Ongar Park, 15, 19, 93, 141, 207, 210. Panfield Hall, 4, 342, 344. Parndon Woods, 18, 174, 187, 206, 367. Row Wood, 19, 57, 93, 126, 134, 151, 154, 200, 205, 207. 355 ; Roydon Park, 18, 41. Spains, 20 Takeley Forest, 3, 19, 56, 77, 156, 159, 200, 207, 345. Witney Wood, 13, 57, 72, 82, 155, 173, 205. Hunt Servants— Bailey, James, i68, 169, 170, 171, 195, 204, 207, 209, 211, 217, 279; Barwick, Chas., 125, 126, 134; Benlley, 277, 278; Berkshire, Dan, 112, 116; Catch, 39; Cole, Jack, 55, 73, 82, 83; Collar, J., 328; Cockayne, J., 206,208; Cornell, Meshech, 269, 299, 300 ; Crane, Will, 65 ; Crawley, 169, 170, 212; Cross, 272 ; Dean, Wm., 317; Dent, J., 147; Dobson, S., 149, 150, 151, 153, 154, 167; Fairbrother, Richard, 44, 46, 2S5 ; Firr, F., 169; Firr, Tom, 169; God- dard,2S4; Good.'ll,F., 168; Hills, Jem, 118,119; Hort, 269; Jennings, Pen, 51 ; Jones, William, 39, 40, 41 ; Litileworth, C, 169; Long, Nimrod, 275: Long, Will, 275 ; iMorgan, Jem, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 92, 96, 230, 271 ; Morgan, Ben, 75, 79 ; Morgan, Goddard, 75, 78 ; Morgan, Jack, 79 ; Morgan, Tom, 79 ; Orbell, George, 86, 323 ; Orvis, Will, 79, 92, 94, 95, 96, 107, 109 ; Parker, Jack, INDEX. 381 76; Rcie, George, 280, 283; Ransom, 274; Rees, Harry, 274,275, 277; Roots, Joe, 269, 326, 327; Rose, Tom, 32; Sliepherd, C, 125, 272, 274, 275; Shore, 169; Sorrell, 272; Slevens, Jack, 2S5 ; Stevens, John, 2S5 ; TreaiKvell, Jno., 112, 113, 115, It6, iig, 120, 121, 122; Tyler, John, 41 ; Wells, Geo., 119; Wilkinson, |ohn, 41 ; Wilson, T., 125, 134, 140, 147, 296; Yeo, Dick, 159, 279, 2S0. Masters of Hounds. — .-Anglesey, Marquis of, 147 ; .-Vnson, Viscount, 37 ; Archer, .Mr. John, 35, y>, 37, 40: .\rkwright, Rev. J., n, 2t, 27, 85, 113, 116, I2j, 124, 125, 126, 127, 130, i3r, 132, 134, "J5. 136. Ij7, 13S, 139. 140, 14', 144. 145. >94, 323 ; Arkwright, .Mr. L., II, 15, 20, 22, 124, 145, 146, 147, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 214 ; .Arkwright, Mr. L. J. W., 194, 204 ; .-Vrkwright, Mr. R. (the Oakley), 157; .A.shton, .\Ir., 283,296; .-Vtkins, Mr. .M., 120 ; Barclay, Mr. E., 340 ; Barker, Mr. F., 327 ; Barnett, General, 47 ; Bayly, Mr. II., 151 ; Beaufort, Duke of, 275; Beckford, 30, 46; Bentinck, Lord Hy. (Burton), 125; Bisset, Mr. F., 107; Bowlby, Mr. E. S., 84, 213, 215 ; Brewett, .Mr., 269 ; Broke, Lord W. de, 20S, 220; Buccleuch, the Duke of, 169: Bullock, Col., 65, 303; Burgh, Mr. de, 9; Butler, Mr. Thomas, 54; Button, Mr. A., 272, 273,274; Calvert, Mr., 304; Canning, Mr., 31. 32, 29S ; Carnegy, Capt., 280, 293 ; Coke, Mr. Thomas William (sec also Earl of Leicester), II, 32, 37. 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 48 ; Colvin, .Mr. Beale, 18, 85, 94. 195, 221, 301 ; Conyers, Mr. Henry John, 4, 5, 7, 9, 13, 15, 21, 47, 51, 52, 53, 66, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 8i, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 91, 92, 94, 96, 216, 325 ; Cook, Col. John, 8, 10, II, 21, 24, 25, 26, 33, 34, 49. 53. 54. 55. 58. 59. 60, 61, 63, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72, 73; Coope, .Mr. E. J., 301; Corbet, Mr., 64; Cox, Mr. .\. [see Button) ; Craven, Lord, 41 ; Crooks, J., 323, 326 ; Dacre, Lord, 22 ; Dalzell, Mr., 306 ; Denn or Denne, Mr., 47 ; Denn, Sir George, 84; Drake, Mr., 150; Uuffield, Mr. T , 120; Farquhatson, .Mr., 51, 112; Gosling, Mr., 3o5 ; Grafton, Duke of, 32, 36, 44 ; Graham, Sir Bellingham, 37 ; Greaves, Mr. Henley, 4, 5, 21, 49; Green, Mr. C. E., 20, 49, 81, 188; Grimslon, Mr. W,, 301 ; Hanbury, .Mr., 65, 66, 306 ; H.astings, Marquis of (Quorn), 147; Hornby, Col., 284; Houblon, Mr. John .\rcher, 8, 9, 10, 11, 19, 37, 38, 6f, 71, 72, 306 ; Ibbetson, Sir Henry Sehvin (see Rookwood, Lord) ; Kemble, Commander, 282, 283, 296 ; Lennard, Sir T. B., 254, 274, 328 ; Leconfield, Lord, 275 ; Leices- ter, Earl of {seeatsoQaV.fi, Mr. Thos. Wm.), 11, 37; Lonsdale, Lord, 78, 79, 220 ; Lowndes, Mr. S. .Selby, 163; Lucy, Mr. S., 118 ; Marriott, Mr. R., 4, 300, 301 ; Maynard, Lord, 323; .Mellish, .Mr. Jos., 315; Mellisli, Mr. Wm., 316 ; Neave, Mr. Sheffield, 6, 82, 83, 85, 87, 28S, 302, 304, 322, 324, 325, 329; Ne.ave, .Mr. S. H. .M., 33'. 332. 334, 335 ; Newman, .Mr. Charles, 4, 42, 48, 66, 298, 299, 301, 302, 303 ; Newman, Mr. Harding, 32, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48, 52, 285 ; Nicoll, Mr. Samuel, 67 ; Nunn, .Mr. C, 302; Offin, Mr., 274, 277, 278, 279, 292; Osbaldeston, Mr., 2S5, 299; Parker, Mr. J., 327; I'arry, fvli-. N., 150, 277, 304, 306; Panton, .Mr. Thomas, 54, 305 ; Parker, .■Kdmiral, 2Sd ; Parker, .Mr. J., 327; Payne, Mr. J., 302, 304 ; Peire, Lord, 15, 28, 66, 85, 94, 268 et seq., 273, 277, 2S4, 287, 306, 326 ; Petre, Hon. F., 288, 320, 327; Petre, Hon. H., 327; Portman, Lord, 169; Portsmouth, Lord, 169; Powlell-Powlett, Mr., 55; Rad- cliffe, .Mr. Delme, 197 ; Richmond, Duke of, 34 ; Rook- wood, Lord, 12, 19, 25, 92, 2ig, 221, 239; Roots, 327 ; Rosslyn, Lord, 150, 220; Roundings, 48 cV .t^i/. ; Rowley, Sir William, 30, 31,41, 43; Ruggles-Bris?, Mr. .\., 301 ; Rassell, Mr. William, 44, 285; Saich, Capt., 44, 29S ; Salisbury, Lady, 41 ; Sebiight, .Mr., 197 ; Scratton, Mr., 78, 271, 272, 274, 276, 284, 290, 302; Sharp, Col. Jelf, 301; Sherborne, L')rd, 37, 38; Slingsby, Sir C, 109; Smith, Mr. Assheton, So, 107 ; Stamford, Lord (the (^uorn), 116, 119, 120; Surridge, Mr. North, 44, 326: Sykes, Sir Sutton, 79; Tailby, .Mr. W. W., 168; Thomson, Capt. A., 150; Thornton, Col., 35; Tilney, Earl, 315; Tufnell, Mr., 32, 290, 323, 327 ; Vernon, Lord, 62; Vigne, Mr. H., 337 et seq. \ Ward, Mr., 259, 290, 304; Warde, .Mr. fohn, 63, 106; Watlington, Mr. P., 145, 223; WeIfitt,"Col. (Ruftord), 150; Wellesley, Mr. T. L., 319; White, Mr. W. H., 279, 2S0, 293; Wilson, Mr., 54, 85; Wilson, Capt., 298: Wolverton, Lord, 327; Wonibuell, Sir Geo., 109; Wroughton, .Mr., 296 ; Yar- borough. Lord, 29, 275. .Miscella neotts — .\dams, S.am, 81 ; .VImack, Mr, 20; Andover, Lord, 37 ; .\rchcr, Lady M., 36; Aikwright, Mr. Richard, U; " .'\rundel," 304. Bagol, Mr. H., 257; Balfour, Mr., 323 ; Ball, Mr. R. C, 174, 176; Barnes, Mr. P., 225; Barnes, Mrs. P., 16,220; Beadel, .Mr., 223; Benyon, .Mr.. 284; Bcresford, Lord C,., 220; Bevan, Mr. R. C. L., 196, 197, 225, 226; Bevan, .Mr. R. L., 196, 225; Bevan, .Mr. R. Y., 196,225; Bevan, Lady A., 196; Blyth, .Mr. II., n, 227, 335; lilylh, Sir Jas., 227; Boards, .Mr. E., 140, 232, 233; Borwick, Mr. J., 225 ; Box, .Messrs., 84 ; Brindle, Mr., 335 ; Bullock, Mr., 273, 303 ; Hunter, Mr., 292 ; Bramslon, Rev. John, 13, 14 ; Bramslon, .Mr. Thomas Henry, 14 ; Bramston, Mr. Thom.as Gardiner, 14, 80, 81 ; Bramston, Mr. Thomas William, 14, 96 ; Braybrooke, Lord, 33 ; Brooke, Lord, 184 ; Brooke, Lady, 210 ; Bruce, Capt. D., 224; Burgoyne, Col. Montague, 11, 38, 39; Bux- ton, Mr. G., 221; Buston, Sir T. F., 17, 221, 329; Buxton, Mr. C, 329. Calcraft, Major, 69; Caldecott, .Mr. E., 226 ; Calvert, Mr. F., 304 ; Campbell, .Mr., 84 ; Carlingford, Lord, 16, 17 ; Carr, .Messrs., 23! ; Carter ; Major .\. H., 224 ; Carter, -Mrs., 224 ; Cary, 321 ; Cassidy, Jem., 139, 232, 233, 382 INDEX. 323; Caton, Mr., 211; Chafy, Mr. VV., 112; Chand- lers, Mr. J., 323 ; Chapman, 8 ; Christy, Messrs., 25, 28, 223, 328, 334 ; Clarendon, Lady, 220 ; Coke, Sir Edward, 37 ; Collin, Mr. Chaffey, 217 ; Colvin, Lady G., 221 ; Connaught, Duke of, 278 ; Conyers, Senr., Mr., 7, 8; Courage, .Mr. E., 293, 32S ; Cox, Capt., 273; Cox, "Parson," 300; Crocker, Mr. W., 227; Crocker, Mrs. W., 227; Cruikshank, George, 50; Cure, Major George Capel, 15, 19; Cure, Rev. L. C, 224. Davis, Mr., 288 ; Dawson, Mr. Jas., 226 ; Dawson, Mr. G. H.,226; Deacon, Mr. A., 327; Davidson, Mr. M., 295 ; Ducane, Mr. C, 327. Earle, Mr., 9; Edwards, Mr. A. J., iS, 221 ; Egan, Pierce, 49 ; Egerlon, General, 32 ; Elder, Mr. H. H., 138, 147 ; Eldon, Lord, 54 ; Ellis, Mr. E., 227 ; Essex, Earl of, 20 ; Exeter, Lord, 140. Fane, 17 ; Fane, The Rev. F., 130, 147, 224, 323; Field- ing, Mr., 8; Foster, The Rev. Sir C, 253 ; Foster, Mr. H., 178, 179. 2or, 233, 234, 236, 252, 253, 256 ; Fowler, Mr. H., 188, 227 ; Froissart, 27 ; Fry, Mr., 223. Gilbey, Mr. Newman, 12, 226; Gilbey, Mr. T., 227; Gil- bey, Sir Walter, 227; Gold, Mr. Charles, M.P., 227; Gloucester, Duke of, 27 ; Green, Mr. F., 196 ; Green, Mr. (of Parndon), 223 ; Green, Mr. G., 193; Gurney, Mr. H., 329. Hall, Mr. C, 32S ; Hall, Mr. J., 140; Hammond, Mr. J., 323; Hankey, Mr. A. A., 86, 323 ; Hargreaves, Mr. P., 201 ; Harrington, Mr., 324; Harris, Henry, 79; Hart, Mr. G., 139, 221, 224, 233; Harting, Mr., 321; Haynes, 86; Headley, Lord, 286 ; Helme, Mr. E. T., 226 ; Henniker, Sir Brydgts, 26 ; Heseltine, Mr. E., 226 ; Heseltine, Mrs. E., 226; Hill, Mr. J., 323; Hodgson, Mr. Thomas, 85 ; Hodgson, Mr. John, 85, 216 ; Hodg- son, Rev. Henry, 85 ; Holmes, 74, 75, 82; Hood, Tom, 50; Horner, The Messrs., 224; Houblon, Lt.-Col. G. B. A., 220; lioublon. Miss A., 220; Howard, Col., 141, 152, 162, 234, 236; Huddleston, Mr. Baron, 117 : Hull, Mr., 231. Ibbetson, Lady, 183 ; Ind, Mr., 279, 286. James L, 35, 310; James H., 7, 311, 312 ; Jones, Miss E., 231 ; Jones, Mr. iL E., 231 ; "Jorrocks," Mr. John, 35; Judd, Rev. J., 323. Kemble, Mr. Thomas, 4, 283, 2S7 ; Kemp, Mr. Alfred, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259; King, Mr., 223; Ivingscote, Capt., 323. Lawrence, Sir William, 90: Lennox, Lady A. G., 220; Lescher, Mr., 286; l.loyd, Mr., 75 ; Lloyd, Mr. H. E., 230; Lockwood.Col. Mark, M.P., 12, 16, 221 ; Lockwood, Mr. Robert, 13; Lowndes, Mr. Selby, 278; Lushington, Mr. William, 38; Lyall, Mr. R. C, 227. Mackenzie, Mr. W. H.,6; Maitland, Rev. J. W., 16; Mann, Mr. T. J., 19; Marriott, Mr. H. R. G., 5, 300; Marriage, Mr., 328; Marsh, Mr. Chisenhale, 15, 221; Mashiter, Mr. T., 141, 323 ; Matthews, Mr. F. J., 22 ; Maynard, Lord, 9, 10; Maynard, Hon. Charles Henry (Col. Maynard), 9, 10,220; Mcintosh, Mrs., i5, 220; Milbank, Mr. G., 223; Mlldmay, Sir PL, 287; Morgan, the Misses, 226; Moore, George, 90, 91 . Neave, Capt. D., 288; Neave, Mr. E., 335; Neave, Sir Thomas, 17, 322; Nesbitt, Mr. John, 87 ; Newman, Mr., 223; Newman, Mr. Caswell, 300; Nickalls, Mr. P., 234, 236 ; " Ninirod," 64. Parker, Mr. Chris., 271, 287; Paton, Mr. Frank, 217; Peel, Misses, 230 ; Peel, Mr. A., 230 ; Pelly, Mr. J. G., 225; PcUy, Mr. E., 230; Pelly, Mr. L., 231; Perry, Mr. ]., 193 ; Petre, Mr. A., 290 ; Phelips, Mr. Charles, iS ; Price, Mr. H. J., 231 ; Prince of Wales, 220, 261 ; Pringle, Mr. Hunter, 28 ; Prior, Mathew, 136. Quare, Mr. B. B., 87, 228; Quare, Mr. E., 227, 22S, 230; Quare, Mr. PL, 85, 159,228, 229; Quare, Mr. T. B., 85, 228, 229. Raincock,Mr., 139,223; Raincock, Mrs., 139, 222 ; Rayleigh, Lord, 286; Reeve, The Bros., 137, 327; Keeve, Mr. J., 137,138: Reeve, Mr. S., 147 ; Reynolds, .Miss, 93; Rhodes, Mr. R., 140; Ricardo, Capt., 224; Richard n.,27; Ric- hardson, Mr., 223; Ridley, Mr. T. D., 85 ; Ridley, Mr. C. E., 24, 28, 231 ; Ridley, Mr. J., 165 ; Roden, Lord, 19 ; Roffey, Mr. W. T., 231; Rose, Sir George, 53; Ros- ling, Mr. Edward, 28 ; Round, Mr. H;.,327 ; Rowley, Lady, 31 ; Rush, Parson, 324 ; Russell, Mr. Champion, 2S5. Sands, Mr. J., 162, 205, 225 ; Savary, Capt. Tanzia, 17 : Scruby, Mr. J., 223, 234, 236 ; Sewell, Messrs., 225 ; Simms, " Parson," 323; Smijth, Sir William Bowyer, i5; Smdes, Dr., 90; Smith, Sir Charles Cunliffe, 16, 17, 210, 221, 328, 332 ; Smith, Dr., 50 ; Soames, Mr., 327 ; Spit- ley, Major, 255 ; Stallibrass, Mr. Charles, 85 ; Stallibrass, Mr. James, 85, 165 ; Stallibrass, Mr. John, 85, 232, 233, 325 ; Stane, Rev. B. , 13, 14, 323 ; Stanhope, Hon. Spencer, 37; Start, Mr. C, 300; Steele, Mr. A. R., 227 ; Strutt, Col., 56; Surtees, Mr. A., 54 ; Surtees, Miss, 54; Suther- land, Duchess of, 220 ; Siiart, Mr. A., 225 ; Swiss, Mr. A. PL, 3; Sworder, Mr. A., 223. Tabor, Mr. J., 328; Tait, Maj., 225; Tail, Mrs., 225; Taltersall, Messrs., 64; Teck, Prince Adolphus, 220; Teck, Prince Francis, 220; Tippler, Mr. P., 243; Tod- hunter, Mr., 18, 229; Tower, "Parson" W., 323; Trollope, Mr. A., 159 e.' seij., 225, 329; Tufnell, Col. Wdli.am Nevill, 14, 28; Tufnell, .Mr. Jolilie, 85, 94: Turner, F. C, 300; Tyrrell, Sir John Tysscn, 85, 89; Tyrrell, Rev. C, 323. Usborne, Mr. T., M.P., 231, 328. INDKX. 38: Vickerman, Mr., 32S ; VenUice, 39; Vyse, Col., 323. Walmsley, >[r., 25S ; Waltham, Mr., 223; Ward, Mr. R. P., 215; Warwick, Earl of, 10; Warwick, Coun- tess of, 10, 20, 134, 179, 220, 323; Waters, Mr., 225; Waters, Mrs., 133, 147, 225 ; Webb, Tom, 323 ; Western, Lord, 303; White, Mr. Tyiuhle, 179, 230; White, .Mr. Thos., 300; Whilmore, Capt. D., 2S6; Whyte-Melville, 200, 279; Wigram, Sir Koberl, II, 193, 194: Wilson, Sir Spsncer Slaryon, 26; Wilson, Rev. G. M., 224; Wilson, Mai. M., 224; Wolstenholme, D., S4 ; Wood, Gen. M., 32S ; Wood, Mnj.-Gen. M,, 12, 24, 234, 236, 32S; Wood, Maj.-Gen. Sir E., V.C, 224; Wood, Rev. Sir J. P., 224; Wood, Mr. P., 328; Wood, .Mr. R., 233, 234, 236, 253 ; Woodbridge, \Ir., 85, 85, 94 ; Wright, Mr., 17 ; Wright, John, 86 ; Wythes, Mr. Ernest J.. 16. Yerburgh, Mr., 18S, 225; Yorke, Hon. E. T., 197: Young, Arthur, 22,39; Young, Mr. C, 140; Young, .Mr. .S., 140. Towns and Villages : — Ashdon, 3. Bishops Stortford, 1, 3, 5 ; Brentwood, i, 5, 151, 206, 312, 314; Broomfiekl, 43, 46, 55. Canfields, 2, 21, 26 ; Chelmsford, I, 4, 96, 152 : Col- chester, I, 6. Dunmow, I, 20, 21, 58, 82, 112, 113. Epping, 2, 40, 151, 195, 206, 225, 253, 259. Felstead, 3, 180, 182. Harlow, I, 5, 196, 226; Harlow Bush, 39, 139; Haverhill, 3, 57, 218 ; Havering, 16, 27, 143, 1S9, 200, 220. Ilford, 3. Loughton, 2. Matching Green, 19, 134, 156, 1S2, 200, 227. Navestock, 16, 43 ; Nazing, 19. Ongar, 57, 91, 1 10, 1 14, 229, 261. Pleshey, 27, 187, 204, 209. Radwinter, 3 ; Roydon, 3, 227. Saffron Walden, 21, 33 ; Sawbridgeworth, 3. Thaxted, 3, 20, 140, 203, 211, 255. Wilham, 2, 30; Woodfor.l, 16, 32, 48, 155, 193, 225. Neutral Coverts, 4, 5. Newman, two masters of thi.s name, 43. Office of " Common Hunt," 314. Old hunting family, an, 226. Old sportsmen, 221, 228, 229; Old sportswomen, 222. Packs of Hounds mentioned: Archer's, .Mr., 35 ; .\ther- stone, the, 125; Badsworth, the, Hi; Barclay's Har- riers, Mr. Ed., 216, 227; Harnett's, General, 47; Balhurst's, Hon. L. J., 306; Belvoir, the, 158; 212; Bicester, the, 150; Billesdon, the, 168 ; Brocklesby, the, 158; Burton, the, 125; Calvert's, Mr., 304, 305; Can- ning's, Mr., 31 ; Coke's, Mr., 37 ; Cottesmore, the. III, 269; Dalyell's, Mr., 306; Denn's, .Mr., 47; Denn, Sir George's, 84 ; Dawson's beagles, Mr. J., 226 ; Devon and Somerset slag-hounds, 107, 326; Essex hounds, the, 9, 134, 141, 146, 151, 154,159. 171. 180, 195, 215, 217,230, 245; Essex (East), the, 202, 271, 301, 323 ; Essex Union, the, 196, 202, 226, 267, 271, 279, 289, 293, 296, 297, 302, 327; Farquharson's, .Mr. J., II2: Fife, the, 150; Gal- way's, Lord, 158; Grafton's, Duke of, 32; Hampshire the, 168; Hanbury's, .\Ir. S., 305 ; Hallield, the, 305; Hertfordshire, the, 197, 199 ; Heyihrop, 1 19 ; Xeave's, .Mr. S., no ; Newman's, .Mr. C., 48 ; Newman's, Mr. H., 43 : Oakley, the, 157, 324: Old Berkshire, the, 119, 120, Panlon's, Mr., 305 ; Parry's, Mr., 306; Petre's. Lord, 306; Puckeridge, the, 150, 195, 227, 269, 304, 305 ; .sup- ported by .Mr. E. S. Bowlby, 215 ; Pytchley, the, 197 ; Quare's beagles, Mr., 230 ; Quorn, the, 116, 119, 120, 147 ; Quorn, the South, 168 ; Rounding's, Messrs., 48 ; Rowley's, Sir W. , 30 ; Ruftord, the, 150 : Shrupshire, 3S0; Staffs, the South, 147; Tedworlh, the, 199; Yigne's, Harriers, Mr. H., 253; Warwickshire, 118; Warwickshire, the North, 169 ; York and Anisty, the, 109. Parker, Mr. C. C. , builds the Danbury kennels, 271. Raton's sketches, Mr. F., 217. Peterborough Hound Show, 217, 230. Poems, 318-319; by Mr. R. Y. Bevan, 254255, 34S, 377. Point to point races, Rundells, 244-249; Epping, 259 ; (Jood Easter. 251; Great Easlon, 262; Hassell's, 250; High Roding, 25S : High Roding Bury, 263 ; Stondon, 261 ; Thaxted, 255. Poison, alarm of, 209 ; poi.soning hounds, 154, 172. Polo Club, the West Esse.x, 221. Presentation to Mr. Conyers, 96 ; to Mr. S. Neave, 325 ; of a cup to Mr. B. B. ijuare, 228, 229 ; to S. Dobson, 167 ; to Captain and Mrs. Carnegy, 282. Rahies in Mr. H. Newman's kennel, 47; serious outbreak of, 158. Races, Essex hunt, 232 el seq. (see also Essex hunt races) ; at tialley Wood Common, 60. Raihv.ays in Essex country, date of opening, 2. Rayleigh kenncl.s, the, 269. " Red Rover " (deer), in a room, 326. Rees and Mr. Cox, 274. Resignations of masterships, Mr. H. Greaves, 116, 119; Rev. |. Arkwrighi, 134, 144: Loul Rookwuod, l89;Mr. L. .Vr'kwright, i<)2; Mr. Watlington, 192 ; Mr. Green, 20S, 212; Mr. Neave, 325. Riders, a lesson to hard, 136. •• Killings Rccollcctiuns," \Vhyte-Melville's, 200. Riding, River, 6, 185, 198, 209. " Riiot '' ditches described, 24. Rooihings, the, 6, 21, 22, 23, 155, 159, 200, 311 ; fo.xes in. 384 INDEX. 25 ; in wet weather, 23 ; roads and churches in, 23 ; ditches, 24 ; scent in, 25. Royal Buckhounds in Essex, 314. Rundell's Sleeplochase Course, description of, 234 et sen. Runs, good, 141, 147, 151, 152, 172 et seq., 174, 200, 202, 203, 204, 206, 207, 20S, 212, 216, 217, 2i8, 321, 324, 325. 334- Runweil gorse, 287. Sale of horses and hounds, 109, 116. Saracen's Head, Duniuow, dinners at, 59. Scent in the Roothing-;, 25 ; in the Essex Union country, 267. South Essex Hunt, 273. Speeches on fox-hunting, 96 et seq. Sportsmen, old, 206, 221, 22S, 229. Stag hunting at force, 309 ; in Epping Forest, 30S et scq. Stub-bred foxes, 26. Sun and Whalebone Inn, 138. Talents Hunt, the, 33, 34. Thorndon Hall Kennels, 26S. "Tom Tickler" (the deer), 324. Tufnell family, the, 13. Tyler, J., whip to Sir W. Rowley, 41. Wales, Prince of, runs horse at Rundells, 261. Wellington, the Duke of, his high opinion of fox-hunling, 103. Westminster Bridge, Duke of Grafton and, 32. Wigr.im and Arkwright Families, the, 194; Wigram and Perry Families, the, 191. "Wildgoose,' the deer, 324. Woodford Hounds, the, 32. r^ ibster Family Library of Veterinary Medicine ummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University 200 Westboro Road . North Grafton, MA 01536