HISTORY OF THE JOCKEY CLUB. S7 



tances and gradients, the Jockey Club has leased several plots 

 of exercise ground lying to the east of Newmarket ; these include 

 the Bury Hill, the Warren Hill, and the Limekilns, the latter 

 being perhaps the best known, the most fraught with pleasant 

 memories, the most popular section of the wide domain from 

 which Heath Tax is levied. A triangular piece of ground, 340 

 acres in extent and exactly one mile in length, it belongs to Mr. 

 Montagu Tharp, from whom, in consideration of a sufficiently 

 formidable rent, the Jockey Club have lately acquired ex- 

 clusive occupation, thus enabling them to determine certain 

 concurrent rights of pasturage which for years caused constant 

 worry and complaints. It lies between the Norwich and Bury 

 roads, the base of the triangle resting on Waterhall farm— a 

 comparatively recent addition to Club territory— and is shel- 

 tered on the south side by the w^ll-known plantation beloved 

 of touts. On 'The Limekilns' during spring and summer 

 mornings — the authorities permitting— are to be seen all the rank 

 and fashion, human and equine, assembled at headquarters ; 

 here private trials innumerable take place in public, here even 

 in the driest weather the going is so proverbially good that the 

 most cautious trainer may venture to send his charges along. 



' Are the Limekilns open ? ' is about the first question asked 

 on arrival in the Craven Meeting, and by the answer is gauged 

 the probable state of the Heath. Stern indeed is the super- 

 vision of this sacred spot, and in wet weather never a hoof-print 

 may deface the velvety sward, whose jealous old guardian 

 Jackson so long tyrannised over his masters and became so 

 noted a character that his name is almost as much associated 

 with the Limekilns as is that of Admiral Rous with the town of 

 Newmarket, and these pages would hardly be complete without 

 a brief sketch of this well-known son of the soil. 



Born at Thetford, January 7, 1800, Jackson, after a long 

 period of w^ork on the roads, was keeping the Bury toll-gate 

 when he contracted with the Jockey Club to take charge of the 

 ground, which he soon regarded as his realm, at a salary of 40/. 

 a year, with an additional 2s. a w^ek for the keep of his donkey, 



