SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN 



defined limits for hunting had not yet come into 

 existence, and a great nobleman like Lord 

 Darlington, provided he refrained from encroach- 

 ing too heavily on the territories or the suscep- 

 tibilities of other magnates, was probably free to 

 hunt foxes wherever he chose to seek them in 

 the north of England. None the less it is 

 certainly curious that he should have elected to 

 travel so far from home — at a time, too, when 

 means of locomotion were exceedingly limited — 

 as the south of Yorkshire, where for a few 

 seasons, in late spring and early autumn, he 

 hunted part of what is now the Badsworth 

 country. Equally curious, and, in a sense, re- 

 grettable, is it that the oft-quoted song of the 

 Raby Hounds with its Irish-like refrain of ' Bally- 

 namonaora ' should apply to this district, which 

 Lord Darlington only retained for a few years.^ 



It was not long before he gradually relinquished 

 the rest of his Yorkshire territory, reserving only 

 the present Bedale country — probably the cream 

 of the whole of it — which in conjunction with 

 practically the whole of the county of Durham ' 

 proved an ample field for even his energy and 

 resources. As it was, he found it necessary to 

 maintain a separate establishment at Newton 

 House, near Bedale, for the purpose of hunting 

 the Yorkshire side of his country, where at ' the 

 220th milestone on the London and Glasgow road' 

 he built commodious kennels and stables and spent 

 ' the happiest days of the year.' ' The kennels 

 at Raby still exist, and within the last few years 

 have been converted into a gamekeeper's house. 



Lord Darlington kept hounds for over fifty 

 years, but he was not merely a master in name : 

 he was his own huntsman for thirty-six seasons, 

 and in addition took the most minute interest in 

 kennel detail. It was his custom to draw his 

 hounds himself on hunting mornings, and to feed 

 them at night, while he personally supervised 

 their drafting, breeding, and exercise. Small 

 wonder that he should refer to them as his 

 ' darling hounds,' or note their performances in 

 his famous diary with such pride and delight. 

 His hounds were of the big, speedy type, and 

 despite his keen eye for individual hound-work 

 it is pretty evident that he was a riding, not a 

 hunting, man. Not only is this the verdict of 

 his contemporaries,* but it is amply corroborated 

 by his own frequent references in his hunting 



' Much of the information here given respecting 

 Lord Darlington's hounds is, by courtesy of the Editor 

 of the Badminton Magazine, reproduced from an 

 article on Raby which the present writer contributed 

 to that periodical in March, igo,).. 



^ Except that portion hunted by Mr. Lambton, of 

 which more anon. A pack of foxhounds is said to 

 have been kept at Gibside, near Newcastle, at the 

 beginning of the nineteenth century by the then Earl 

 of Strathmore, but no record exists of them. 



' Nimrod's Northern Tour. 



' ' He was all for riding : four couple of hounds in 

 front, and the rest coming on anyhow.' The Druid, 



journal to ' lifting ' his hounds. Moreover, he 

 would get away with his fox with, if need be, 

 only two couple of hounds, leaving the body of 

 the pack to be brought on, his theory — in which 

 he has had many imitators — being that when 

 hounds have been left in covert once or twice 

 they learn to fly quicker to the horn. 



The most precise information, from an out- 

 side source, respecting Lord Darlington and his 

 hounds, is found in the writings of Charles 

 James Apperley — better known by his nom de 

 plume of Nimrod — who visited his lordship both 

 at Newton House and at Raby in 1826, when 

 engaged in producing his famous series of ' Hunt- 

 ing Tours' for the proprietors of the Sporting Maga- 

 zine. Reading between the lines of Nimrod's 

 rather extravagant eulogiums, it is pretty evident 

 that Lord Darlington — now Marquess of Cleve- 

 land — no longer rode with his former freedom. 

 Nor is this a matter for surprise when we recol- 

 lect that he was at that time sixty years of age, 

 and had kept hounds for thirty-nine seasons. 

 According to Nimrod : — 



He rides all his horses with a hard hand, and he has 

 a peculiar way of putting them at his fences. I have 

 seen him absolutely make them paw down the fence 

 before he will let them rise, if there should be a blind 

 and a deep ditch on the other side, by which plan he 

 no doubt saves many falls. 



And again : ' His perfect knowledge oj the country 

 — the italics are mine — also gives him a great 

 advantage in getting to his hounds, and he is 

 seldom far from them when wanting ' («V).' 



Yet this ill accords with earlier contemporary 

 verdicts of Lord Darlington's style of going, or 

 with the statement attached to Chalon's portrait 

 of one of his favourite horses, ' Flora, a celebrated 

 hunting-mare of the old English breed,' on which 

 he made ' an extraordinary leap over a hedge four 

 feet high with a ditch beyond measuring seven 

 and three quarter yards.' Nimrod's dictum is 

 equally at variance with the oft-quoted lines from 

 the Badsworth hunting song : '" — 

 Then, first in the burst, see dashing away. 

 Taking all on his stroke on Ralpho " the grey, 

 With persuaders in flank, comes Darlington's peer, 

 With his chin sticking out, and his cap on one ear.'' 

 With my Ballynamonaora 

 The hounds of Old Raby for me. 



Nimrod gives many interesting details concern- 

 ing Lord Darlington's hunting establishment, 



Scott and Sebright. ' Many of the old hands still 

 speak of him as always having his finger in his ears, 

 or his cap in his hand, and consider that his hunting 

 was conducted on no especial system.' Ibid. 



' Nimrod's Hunting Tours — Yorkshire. 



'" Howell Wood ; or the Raby Hunt in Yorkshire, by 

 Martin Hawke. A new hunting song to the tune of 

 Ballynamonaora, n.d., probably circa 1795. 



" The hide of this horse still adorns an armchair at 

 Raby. 



" From about 1805 onwards, not only Lord Dar- 

 lington, but all his hunt servants wore hats, not caps. 



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