Tales of Good Sport - Stories of Fantastic Days Fox-Hunting from the Great Estates of England

By Read Books Ltd.

A fantastic collection of stories from the hay day of English Fox Hunting. Including great runs in Market Harborough, Hampshire and Berkshire and Melton.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: May 31, 2013
• ISBN: 9781473390614

Book preview

Yarns

A WEEK AT MELTON

Choice of Centres—The Railways—Rise of Melton—The Old Club—Hunting Boxes—Hotels—Ladies in the Hunting Field—Society—Number of Horses required—Going with the Crowd—Dress—Expenditure—Economies—Hunting late in the Season—Advantages of Melton—Surrounding Villages—How to spend the Week—Monday with the Quorn—Description of the Country hunted—Tuesday with the Cottesmore—The Crowd—The Tilton and Owston Coverts—Wednesday with the Belvoir—Famous men who have hunted with the Belvoir—Oxers and Bullfinches—Croxton Park—Notable Belvoir Coverts—The Brooks—Thursday’s choice: Mr. Fernie’s or the Cottesmore—Vale of Catmore—Arthur Thatcher—Friday with the Quorn—The Foxes and the Crowd—An Essex Sportsman’s account—Going to the Meet—Scraptoft—Gaddesby—Prince of Wales’s Gorse—Lowesby Hall: Lord Waterford’s Feat—When to Jump and when to avoid Jumping—Knowledge of the Country—Saturday in the Melton country of the Cottesmore—The Essex Sportsman again quoted.

IF the reader has made up his mind to have one or more seasons in the Midlands, he will naturally wish to know where to go, and it is the purpose of the following chapters to put before him the advantages and drawbacks of the different places from which he has to choose. I have adopted the plan of taking my reader to centres rather than to particular hunts, because that is the natural and inevitable course for the newcomer. There is much variety in the Shires, and by going to certain recognised hunting centres he will see the different packs in their best country, and thus be able to decide with which particular hunt he will throw in his lot. By the time he has had this experience he will require no assistance from any one in making up his mind.

The various towns of which I am going to write have become fashionable resorts for hunting people because they are so situated that the best meets of the most famous packs are within reach from them. The visitor to Melton, Market Harborough, or Rugby is not by any means tied to one pack. Rather he will skim the cream of several hunts. There is no doubt that Melton is the first thought of every one who contemplates a visit to the Shires, for its advantages are obvious to any one who will take a map and draw a circle of ten miles round the town. He will find that within that radius is some of the very best country for hunting over that Leicestershire or Rutland affords. If he knows anything of hunting history, he will recognise names of coverts that are household words wherever hunting is talked of, coverts that are connected with the great riders, the able huntsmen, and the historic runs of the past. It may also occur to him that from Melton he can hunt six days a week, yet never breakfast at an uncomfortably early hour and seldom reach home too late for dinner.

He will also note that if he desires to visit more distant packs the joint railways, the L. & N.W. and the G.N.R., will be quite ready to give him a day with Mr. Fernie’s or the Pytchley, if he should think the former too far to ride or drive to, or if, on the other hand, he desires to pit himself against the hard riders that wear the famous white collar. Every one who has thought of hunting from Melton has probably read Brooksby’s story of the Best Season on Record, and he will remember the picture of the Melton man in a flowered dressing-gown leaning over the banisters with the order, "Hey, Johnson, breakfast in half-an-hour, and order me a train. I’ll hunt with Sir Bache."

The flourishing town we now see was little more than a village until Mr. Cecil Forester, drawn by its convenience for hunting alike with Mr. Meynell’s Hounds and the Belvoir, went there for the hunting season. When once this discovery was made the growth of the place was rapid, and before many years Melton became the chief hunting centre of England; and from that day to this there has been a steady flow of fashion and wealth to it. For, apart from its attractions as a sporting centre, it is a pleasant town enough, finely situated and embosomed in a rich vale through which flows the river Wreake. It has a fine church, the tower of which, as Nimrod observed, is often a grateful sight to a returning sportsman on a beaten horse.

For a long time, indeed, Melton was a place where men only gathered for hunting. The grand feature of Melton Mowbray, says the writer quoted above, is the Old Club. This house has long ceased to exist as a club, and the building has now been turned into a shop. One of the chief features of Melton architecture are the handsome hunting-boxes which have been built on the oustkirts of the town, and are comfortable but unpretentious places, many of them only differing from suburban houses elsewhere by the handsome ranges of stabling attached to them. For however modestly the owner may be lodged, he is sure to see that his horses have spacious and comfortable ranges of boxes. Some of these houses are to let every year, others again belong to those regular visitors who have not missed a Melton season for a score or more of years past.

For those who cannot afford a house, or who prefer the absence of care and responsibility that accompany housekeeping, there are some excellent hotels, such as the George, the Bell, and the Harborough Arms. These are generally full during the winter months, and the man who would secure rooms must take time by the forelock in engaging them. Besides the hotels, there are comfortable lodgings to be had, as well as ranges of stabling with quarters for the grooms, which latter are let separately, and are found convenient by those who do not wish, or are not able, to take up their abode in the town for the whole winter.

Melton was at first a place where ladies were seldom or never seen. For in the early days of the last century, while Melton was still not quite sure whether its prosperity depended on its Stilton cheeses and the excellence of its pork pies, or on the patronage of its hunting visitors, ladies as a rule did not and could not hunt. The old style of side-saddle made it difficult, if not impossible, for a woman to ride over a country with safety, and the modern saddlers have done as much as any one to make hunting the popular sport for women that it is to-day. In its earlier years, then, when Melton society existed entirely for hunting, every one hunted six days a week or was supposed to do so, and, as the riders often larked home across country after a bad day, very large studs were required. In this respect the coming of ladies to Melton has brought about a change. It is no longer absolutely necessary to hunt every day, for there is much society for those who are able to enter into it. Indeed some people say there is too much, and that the pleasant dinners and bridge parties interfere with hunting. Nevertheless, though it is pleasant to do as other people, it is not perhaps essential to copy them in all things.

For those who mean to hunt four or five days a week I should say that six good horses, and a polo pony or two to ride or drive, are a minimum stable. Nevertheless, if you are bent on seeing Melton with a smaller stud you can always have business in London if the stable runs short, or Mr. Hames of Leicester or Mr. Cowley of Braybrooke near Market Harborough will mount you as well or better than you can do it yourself. Like all other centres of English society nowadays, that of the hunting towns has become very large. The latter has, of course, its sets and divisions, but no one troubles about your affairs, and you can ride hard or not as you please and dress as you like without attracting attention.

Nevertheless, wherever he goes, the wise man will try not to differ from the crowd. No one, for instance, would wear a cap or butcher-boots with a pink coat, or go out without a thong to his crop. I imagine too that he would not have a bridle with buckles, or anything but a plain flapped saddle, or put a breastplate on his horse. He should be prepared also to subscribe liberally to at least three packs of hounds.

It is perhaps possible to hunt nearly as inexpensively in the grass countries as elsewhere, but still no one would choose Melton with a view to economy. The visitor who makes use of the country for his pleasure ought certainly to pay for the advantages to obtain which he has left his own country. For if fox-hunting is to continue and to prosper in the Midlands, it can only do so by having its advantages made clear to the people of the district. Everything then that can possibly be purchased in the place should be bought there, though this will add something to our expenses.

Altogether, the necessary expense of a season at Melton will mount up to a very considerable sum. But if the question be asked How much? this must of course depend on the scale on which the thing is done.

Still there are ways by which one can reduce the total. To begin with, only a part of the season may be spent there. A very great many people do not come to Melton till after Christmas, and some only for the last two months of the season. Now, February is generally, and March often, a good time for sport. With regard to the latter month, it is frequently as good as any in the Midlands, and is nearly always better there than elsewhere. When other countries are dried up and hunting has ceased to be a pleasure, the grass of the Midlands still carries a scent and affords good going to the horse. Towards the end of the season, too, the evening runs are often first-rate, and as the Masters generally draw as long as there is light, there are many excellent gallops after the crowd has gone home.

If a man is prepared to spend the money, has from six to ten really good horses, and is able to hunt four or five days a week, then Melton is an admirable centre.

Hitherto I have supposed that only a visit to Melton is contemplated, but if it is intended to come there every year, then the best and cheapest plan in the end is to buy or take the lease of a house and furnish. For, although the rent for the season of a well-furnished hunting-box is large, yet house rent in the Melton district for unfurnished houses on lease is not extravagant. There are comfortable houses in and round Melton to suit most tastes, and it is infinitely more pleasant and more comfortable to hunt from one’s own house than from lodgings or an hotel.

It has been said that the day of Melton is passing, that the town has been invaded by manufactories, that it is too crowded, and that the society is somewhat mixed. But granted that there is some truth in these objections, still there is no other place that can give so much hunting over such a good country with so little road work and so many advantages as Melton, and it remains, in spite of all deductions, the best hunting centre in the world.

For those who do not like to live in or near a town, there are many pleasant villages round Melton, in which a good many well-known hunting people pitch their tents. According as we choose one or other of these, we shall find of course that the advantage of the central position of Melton is to a certain extent lost. Two or three miles, indeed, is not a long distance, but it is an appreciable addition to the evening ride home when we and our horses are tired. On the other hand, to the sociable person who dislikes a solitary evening, the town is the pleasanter place. But we will suppose that this important point has been settled, that Melton with its good shops and convenient railway service is your choice, and that you have plenty of horses. Now, we will proceed to consider how the week is to be spent and what kind of country you will find to ride over on each successive day.

The regular Melton man begins his week with the Quorn as a matter of course. Indeed, although but two days or occasionally three days of the week are spent with this