( 15"-> ) 



CHAPTER XIV. 



BLITHFIELD — SPORT IN 1844 — THE HORN DANCE. 



1844. 



The very name of Blithfield cannot fail to conjure up 

 pleasant recollections in the mind of any follower of the 

 Meynell hounds, for where in this delightful country are 

 you more sure of a fox — nay, of foxes enough for a dozen 

 days' sport — and of a line unsurpassable anywhere to hunt 

 one over, not to mention the woods, which are the p/ec£? de 

 resistance of cub-hunting. And for all this we are in- 

 debted to the Bagot family. How long that same family 

 has been settled there and thereabouts is uncertain, but 

 that it was at Bagot's Bromley in 1086 is proved beyond 

 all fear of dispute.* In the general survey of estates 

 made by command of William the Conqueror, they are 

 recorded as possessors of a moiety of Bagot's Bromley, 

 which they held of Robert de Stafford. In those days 

 Bramelle stood for Bromley, and StafFordcire did duty for 

 the Staffordshire of to-day, while the Bagot in question 

 spelt his name with a " d " instead of a "t."f In the reign of 

 Edward III., Sir Ralph Bagot, Knight, married Elizabeth, 

 daughter and heiress of Richard de Blithfield, a very 

 ancient family, seated on the manor of that name, within 

 two miles of his residence at Bagot's Bromley. With her 

 he became possessed of the estates at Blithfield and Little- 

 hay in Colton, which had been in her family from the 

 Conquest. It appears most probable that on his marriage 



* " Memorials of the Bagot Family." t Ibid. 



