212 THE WAEWICKSHIRE HUNT. [I85i 



bridle ; he hunted for many years, and was the owner 

 of several celebrated racehorses and steeplechase horses, 

 which he trained himself at Swalcliffe. The best of 

 these was Big Ben, a thoroughbred stallion, a very good- 

 looking dark brown horse, standing more than sixteen 

 hands high. In 1860 he started thirteen times, and won 

 six times ; and the next year he started twice, and won both 

 times. Mr. Gulliver's best hunter w^as a grey horse, which 

 he sold to Lord Willoughby de Broke. 



Mr. Russell, of Hodnell, was a very sporting farmer, and 

 rode well up to late in life. 



Mr. Bromley Davenport, of Bagington Hall, War- 

 wickshire, and Capesthorne, Cheshire, was for a long 

 time a noted character as a sportsman. He was always 

 capitally mounted, and I think he was the most 

 daring short-sighted rider I have ever seen. I remember 

 on one occasion, in Leicestershire, coming with him 

 and others to a locked gate ; those who intended 

 i-iding over it turned their horses round for the 

 purpose of giving them the necessary run at it, but 

 Bromley, anxious to be first over, only reined his horse 

 back five yards, and got such a fall that he was 

 carried on a hurdle insensible to the nearest farmhouse. 

 He wrote some famous hunting poems, " Loseby Hall " 

 the most noted, amongst others. Also some very 

 interesting records of his fishing in Norway. He made an 

 attempt to ascend the Bomsdal Horn, which is beyond a 

 certain point an inaccessible precipice. I have been as 

 far as the shoulder and have seen the place up which 

 Bromley managed to ascend twenty feet, and the 

 Norwegian guide, who was above him, then said, 

 " Bromley, I cannot go further, because the mountain 

 overhangs and is more than perpendicular, and I shall fall 

 on to you." This meant a fall of 301)0 feet on either side 

 into two different valleys. Bromley told me himself after- 

 \\'ards that he would have given all he possessed to know 

 that he could descend those twenty feet of sKppery rock, a 

 matter which was accomplished with the utmost difiicult}' 



