A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Leslie Birkin, 

 D.S.O., of Ruddington Grange has, within recent 

 years, been prominently associated with racing 

 under both Jockey Club and National Hunt 

 rules, and is particularly identified with the meet- 

 ings held at Colwick Park. His horses are 

 trained by E. Martin at Lambourn, but there 

 are also a few with C. Brown at Melton 

 Mowbray. His two steeplechasers, Springbok 

 and Merry John, are excellent fencers, and as 

 both are very partial to the Nottingham course 

 local admirers of their gallant owner frequently 

 have the opportunity of cheering his equine 

 favourites. 



Mr. Charles Hibbert, the well-known book- 

 maker, is also a Nottinghamshire man, and 

 takes great interest in the Colwick Park and 

 Southwell meetings. He has a long string 

 of flat-racers and jumpers in training by W. 

 Nightingall at South Hatch, Epsom, and his 

 ambition to win the Grand National came 

 near to realization when, in 1906, Red Lad ran 

 second to Ascetic's Silver. That horse was 

 trained for him by Joseph Cannon at Lordship, 

 Newmarket. Amongst Mr. Hibbert's horses are 

 several whose names have reference to localities 

 in the county, including Sherwood Rise and 

 Sherwood Forest, and the former won recently 

 over obstacles at Southwell. 



The famous cross-country jockey, George 

 Williamson, also claims Notts as his native county. 

 He won the Grand National on Manifesto in 

 1899, and was also in the saddle when that great 

 horse ran third in the years 1 900 and 1903. For 

 many years Williamson fulfilled lucrative engage- 

 ments in Austria, and his successes in the saddle 

 on the Continent were very numerous. He does 

 not now ride so frequently as hitherto, but oc- 

 casionally takes a mount for owners with whom 

 he has been associated in past years. Williamson 

 is also a cricketer of some ability, and regularly 

 figures in the annual matches of Jockeys against 

 Athletes and Jockeys against Actors. 



No history of Nottinghamshire racing would 

 be complete without reference to the Ford family. 

 Mr. W. J. Ford has been associated with the 

 sport as judge, clerk of the course, and in other 

 capacities for half a century, and no man in the 

 Midlands is regarded as a greater authority on 

 the subject. He is assisted by his sons, Mr. W. 

 Ford, Mr. John Ford, and Mr. Stanley Ford,, 

 who appear to have inherited the qualities which 

 have rendered Mr. Ford senior facile princeps in 

 his departments. The Messrs. Ford are in 

 great request as clerks of courses, stake- 

 holders, and starters in various parts of the 

 country, and officiate at meetings as far distant 

 as Carlisle. 



SHOOTING 



Although given over very largely to foxhunt- 

 ing, Nottinghamshire affords a good deal of sport 

 for the shooting man. For pheasant-rearing on 

 a large scale many parts of Nottinghamshire are 

 admirably suited, especially the western half of 

 the county, including the district about Sherwood 

 Forest, where the soil is for the most part sandy 

 and gravelly. Further east there is more 

 clay and the land is not so good for pheasants, 

 although partridges do fairly well in the better 

 farmed districts. In the Trent Valley the land 

 is so largely devoted to pasture that it is by no 

 means suitable for game, and the disappearance 

 of arable land in many parts of the county has 

 here, as elsewhere in England, been entirely 

 against the welfare of game-preserving. In the 

 southern portion of the county adjoining Leices- 

 tershire, foxes are much too plentiful to allow 

 of any very remarkable achievements in the 

 way of partridge-shooting, and in the extreme 

 north the same difficulty occurs. Driving, in 

 preference to walking up, is the recognized 

 method of partridge-shooting nowadays on most 

 of the more important Nottinghamshire estates, 

 and by its means the stock of birds has been 

 improved in those parts where other conditions 

 were favourable. Much of the open land of the 

 county is, however, quite useless for partridges, 



which cannot thrive on poor uncultivated soil 

 that produces nothing better than gorse, heather, 

 and brambles ; and there is a large acreage of 

 poor land in Nottinghamshire that cannot even 

 support ground game in any quantity. Wild 

 pheasants thrive very well in certain districts 

 where the soil is suitable and the land is well 

 looked after. But the foxes make it impossible 

 in most places to get up a large head of wild 

 birds ; as may be judged from the fact that oil 

 one estate, consisting of 12,000 acres of covert 

 upon which no birds at all are reared by hand, 

 the annual bag of pheasants does not average 

 more than one bird to 1 8 acres ! The western 

 portion of the county is better than the eastern 

 for game-preserving purposes, while in the eastern 

 half there is still good sport to be had with wild- 

 fowl, including snipe, of which great numbers 

 are sometimes to be seen. 



If there is nothing very famous to record in 

 the matter of shooting in the county at the 

 present time, the past has not been wholly with- 

 out remarkable incident. It was in Notting- 

 hamshire, for instance, that the remarkable 

 match between Squire Osbaldeston and 

 Mr. Crawford came off, and few events in the 

 sporting world created more sensation than this 

 test of shooting skill between two of the greatest 



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