182 THE MEYNELL HOUNDS. 



Tlie pick of this year's entry iu his work was Marvel, 

 who remained in the pack till Charles Leedham resigned. 

 He inherited his dam Beeswing's capacity for carrying 

 the line down a road or over a dry fallow. She was a 

 wonderfully good one, was entered in 1885, and hunted 

 till her ninth season. 



In this year Mr. Frank Cooper came to the old house 

 at Barton Blount, which has seen so many changes of 

 owners and occupants. It was originally called Barton 

 Bakepuze, being held by William Bakepuze of Robert de 

 Ferrers, who was overlord of this and of what not beside. 

 There was not an acre on which the eye of Henry de 

 Ferrers rested, when he looked out from his castle at 

 Tutbury, which was not his, and in glancing at the history 

 of any place for miles round, one always finds " which he 

 held of Henry, or Robert, or some other Ferrers." 



The old house at Barton was originally a castellated 

 building and had a moat. It was besieged by the 

 Parliamentarians, when in the possession of the Earls of 

 Mountjoy. Long before this, however, the estate passed 

 to Nicholas de Longford, about 1375, by his marriage with 

 Helen, sister and heiress of the last William Bakepuze, 

 who died without issue. From Nicholas de Longford it 

 passed by purchase to the Blounts, in 1381, and became 

 Barton Blount. The member of that family who owned 

 it in 1464 was in that year created Lord Mountjoy. From 

 the sixth earl it was purchased by John Merry, Gent., 

 of London, whose family terminated in an heiress, who 

 married a Simpson, who, in 1700, retired into a monastery. 

 Of his trustees Sir Nathaniel Curzon bought it ; from him 

 it came to the Listers ; from them to the Cromptons, from 

 whom the Bradshaws bought it about the year 1800. This 

 family, which was descended from Bradshaw, the Regicide, 

 ended in the male line with seven brothers, who all died 

 childless, and the estate now belongs to Miss Bradshaw. 



Arthur Francis Thomas, always known as "Frank" 

 Cooper, was born in 1857, and was very early sent to Eton 

 — much earlier, in fact, than most boys. This was on 



