6 THE WARWICKSHIRE HUNT. 



Then comes Thursday and " Shuckburgh Hill." We 

 remember a good sportsman, who, speaking to a casual 

 acquaintance in the train, asked him if he still hunted ? 

 " No," he said, " I have given it up for years, but there 

 is one meet in England for which I would still box a 

 horse, even from town, and that is ' Shuckburgh Hill.' " 

 You send your best horse to Shuckburgh, just as you used 

 to Tilton AVood, when that old friend " Plancus " was 

 still going. The surrounding country is large and stiff, 

 and, as was said just now, requires a hunter to get over it 

 in safety, but all around is an ocean of grass, and wild 

 foxes, so carefully preserved (for centuries I was going to 

 say) by the Shuckburgh family, travel fast and far over the 

 green pastures of Warwickshire, and seldom fail to make 

 an excursion into the fair regions of the sister county of 

 Northampton. If you can ride straight from Shuckburgh 

 Hill to Badby Wood, or Welton Place, or to Bodington, you 

 need not fear to take your conveyance into any country in 

 England, where flying fences have to be sarmounted, and 

 pace as well as mere jumping powers are required. Then 

 there is Deepdale, or, as we prefer to spell it, Debdale, the 

 property of the Biddulph family, and no prettier sight can 

 l)e seen than a meet on the old fashioned village green of 

 Long Itchington, and no sweeter country can be found 

 than that which lies between here and Shuckburgh or 

 Bunker's Hill. The demon wire has indeed, in places, 

 stretched its treacherous snake-like coils across our path, but 

 we prefer in a work of this description to say little about 

 this curse to foxhunting, hoping and believing that the 

 good taste and the good feeling of the Warwickshire 

 farmers will, even in these trying times, remove what must 

 be always a source of danger to life and limb, as well as a 

 destructive element to that good feeling of comradeship 

 and fellowship which has existed so long between sports- 

 men and the occupiers of the land. And what shall we 

 say of Ladbroke, or of Watergall, belonging to those good 

 sportsmen — Mr. William Peareth and Lord Leigh. No 

 better coverts can be found in any hunt, and no better 



