214 OBIGIN OF FOX-HUNTING. 



Brocklesby pack has been maintained in the family of 

 the present Earl of Yarborough more than 130 years 

 without break or change of blood ; and a written 

 pedigree of the pack has been kept for upwards of 100 

 years ; and it is now the oldest pack in the kingdom. 

 The Cottesmore, which was established before the 

 Brocklesby, has been repeatedly dispersed and has long 

 passed out of the hands of the family of the Noels by 

 whom it was first established 200 years ago." 



By the kindness of Lord Yarborough, I was permitted 

 to examine all the papers connected with his hounds. 

 Among them is a memorandum dated April 20, 1713 : it 

 is agreed " between Sir John Tyrwhitt, Charles Pelham, 

 Esq., and Robert Vyner, Esq. (another name well known 

 in modern hunting annals), that the foxhounds now kept 

 by the said Sir John Tyrwhitt and Mr. Pelham shall be 

 joyned in one pack, and the three have a joint interest 

 in the said hounds for five years, each for one-third of 

 the year." And it was agreed that the establishment 

 should consist of " sixteen couple of hounds, three 

 horses, and a huntsman and a boy." So apparently 

 they only hunted one day a week. It would seem that, 

 under the terms of the agreement, the united pack soon 

 passed into the hands of Mr. Pelham, and down to the 

 present day the hounds have been branded with a P. 

 I also found at Brocklesby a rough memoranda of the 

 kennel from 1710 to 1746; after that date the Stud 

 Book has been distinctly kept up without a break. From 

 1797 the first Lord Yarborough kept journals of the 

 pedigree of hounds in his own handwriting ; and since 

 his time by the father, the grandfather, and great-grand- 

 father of the present huntsman. 



In the time of the first Lord Yarborough, his country 

 extended over the whole of the South Wold country, 



