1753 : ASCOT EACES. 347 



been higher bred than himself : there was much company there, 

 and the Duke invited Lord Waldegrave and his companion 

 Lord Anson, to Cranbourne that night, but they did not go. 

 Sandwich was not there." * . . . 



1753. — The Duke of Cumberland was at Windsor Forest for 

 most part of this year ; but it does not appear that the King 

 or any other members of the Royal Family had been there. 

 The Royal Buckhounds and the Duke's pack hunted as usual 

 in the vicinity of the Forest, but we have found no reliable 

 chronicle of the runs which ensued. The former pack met on 

 one occasion, in March, in the New Park, Richmond. The 

 Princess Amelia would not admit pedestrians, and only chaises, 

 chariots, and persons on horseback were allowed to enter. The 

 local inhabitants resented this restriction of their legal rights, 

 and to vindicate their privileges instituted a suit which was 

 tried at the Kingston Assizes on April 3, 1754, which ended in 

 a verdict in favour of the claimants.! We believe the meet 

 of the Royal Buckhounds, above mentioned, was the last which 

 was held in Richmond Park with this pack. According to the 

 official certificate of the Master of theRoyal Buckhounds 38 stags 

 and 22 hinds were killed and hunted by the pack in this year- 



On May 2G, 1753, a match was run over Ascot Heath new 

 course, the best of three two-mile heats for 50^. " and 50^. bye," 

 and was won by Mr. Fisher's bay gelding in the first two heats 

 from Mr. Coat's roan filly. 



The annual meeting was held on Tuesday, Wednesday, and 

 Thursday, August 14, 15, and 16. On the Tuesday the 50^. 

 Plate, " free only to such horses, etc., as had been in the pos- 



* " Correspondence of John, 4th Duke of Bedford : selected from the originals 

 at Woburn Abbej^" by Lord John Russell, vol. ii., pp. 110, 111. In another 

 letter from Mr. Rigby to the Duke, dated October 5, following, he mentions 

 having lately been at " a turtle feast " at Windsor, where he saw both of the 

 Duke of Cumberland's lodges in the forest, his hounds, and his wild beasts. He 

 adds that the Newmarket October race meeting had then made London " emptier 

 than it had been over the whole summer." 



f Tim Bennet, " the honest Presbyterian cobler of Hampton Wick," who 

 died in June 1756, "had a noble monument erected to his memory," for per- 

 sisting and obtaining a right of way through Bushey Park, which had been 

 closed to the public in the reign of William III. 



