TO SAY I worship at the altar of serendipity is an understatement. How I came to gallop once again with the Grafton, in its glorious country that stretches across Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire bordering the Pytchley, Oakley and Bicester with Whaddon Chase, is a textbook example: a raft of wondrous threads woven together. The bloodlines of the pack can still be traced to the original hounds, named after their founder – the Duke of Grafton – whose influence extended far beyond the woodland and hedgerows of central England. His legacy is safeguarded by chairman and Master Charles Smyth-Osbourne and huntsman David Seels, who together keep tight lines on the breeding of this mixed pack of 241/2 couple marrying both old English and modern stock.
Going back to the first Duke, Henry Fitzroy, in the early 18th century; a prosperous Irish family had chosen to pay homage to him by giving his name to a principal Dublin thoroughfare: Grafton Street, a place familiar to me thanks
