Familiar territory

Essex with Farmers and Union, Aythorpe Roding Hall, Essex

AS a hunting correspondent, I have been lucky enough to hunt in virtually every part of the UK, from the Buccleuch in Scotland down to the Four Burrow in Cornwall, but there is one place that I hadn’t hunted, and that was in Essex.

It’s not as if there is a shortage of hunting in the county. There are currently three packs of foxhounds there: the Essex and Suffolk, the East Essex, and the Essex with Farmers and Union. There is a family connection to the county, too, because my grandparents, Patrick and Moses Gee, lived and farmed there and hunted with the Essex (now part of the Essex with Farmers and Union), as did my mother.

So there were plenty of reasons for me to pay Essex a hunting visit, but somehow I never got round to it. This was partly to do with my rather