24 RECORDS OF THE CHASE 



spot where the Lord Berkeley of ancient renown was 

 wont, attended by his thirty huntsmen in tawny coats, 

 to enjoy his venatic pastime. 



Devoted as the family were to the chase, I have been 

 anxious to obtain some history of their sporting career 

 from the earliest period to the present time, but un- 

 fortunately have not been able to do so. Frederick 

 Augustus, the fifth Earl Berkeley, who was bom in the 

 year 1745, hunted a most extensive country for many 

 years, distinguished by the title of the Old Berkeley ; 

 but the precise time when the hounds were established 

 I have not been able to ascertain. His lordship had a 

 kennel at Cranford, his seat in Middlesex; another at 

 Gerrard's Cross, in Buckinghamshire ; a third at Nettle- 

 bed, in Oxfordshire, where the house is yet standing 

 but not the kennels; the fourth at Berkeley Castle. 

 Commencing at Scratch Wood, close to Wormwood 

 Scrubs, about five miles from London, the country held 

 by the late noble lord reached beyond Thombury, in 

 Gloucestershire ; from point to point somewhere about 

 120 miles. The kennels appear to have been singularly 

 situated; the Gerrard's Cross kennel not being more 

 than twelve or fourteen miles from Cranford, and that 

 at Nettlebed not much more than a similar distance 

 from Gerrard's Cross ; whilst from Nettlebed to Berkeley 

 Castle it cannot be much less than eighty miles, the 

 country around which was principally devoted to cub- 

 hunting. When hunting the intermediate country, the 

 hounds, I suppose, must have had temporary accom- 

 modation at inns. The foxes were not so numerous in 

 those days, and the hounds were removed from place 

 to place according to circumstances. Previously to Sir 

 John Cope hunting the Bramshill country, the Old 

 Berkeley paid occasional visits to some parts of it. In 

 fact, they were the only hounds kept to hunt over a 

 vast extent ; and wherever foxes were heard of, they 

 went to hunt them. I have been informed by Mr. 

 Grantley Berkeley that the old huntsman, Tom Oldaker, 

 told him the hounds once found a fox in Scratch Wood 



