26 NIMROD'S HUNTING TOUR 



allude to, was Farnborough, the seat of Mr. Holbech. There was 

 a large party staying at Stratford at the time ; but several of them 

 declined going, saying it was a long way, and a bad place when they 

 got there. I was amongst the number who went, and we killed our 

 fox twelve miles point blank from the place we found him, without 

 meeting witJi more than one plourjhed field , which was just at the last. 

 So much for a bad fixture I 



On the western side of Stratford, verging towards Worcestershire, 

 are Spernal Park and the magnificent woods of the Marquis of 

 Hertford ; very serviceable in a country, but only used here in cub- 

 hunting, although the former place is sometimes made a fixture, and 

 now and then has afforded a run. On the Shipton or south side are 

 numerous good coverts, and certain finds — such as Alveston pastures, 

 Idlecote, Mr. West's and Mr. Canning's coverts, &c. ; as also 

 Weston Park, near Carapdeu in Gloucestershire, a capital scenting 

 covert, but now made neutral with Col. Berkeley. About six miles 

 to the left of that, close to the four-shire stone on the Worcester 

 and London road, is the well-known Woolford wood, which has 

 produced so many brilliant runs, and is always honoured with 

 attendance from the neighbouring Hunts, and very often with some 

 Oxford^men, although twenty-eight miles from Oxford. On the left 

 of Shipston-on-Stour, between that place and Banbury, is what is 

 called the Edge-Hill country, consisting of Hook-Norton (now 

 neutral with the Duke of Beaufort), the renowned* Epwell White 

 House, and several other coverts on the hills ; when, extending 

 around the outside of Sir Thomas Mostyn's country, and embracing 

 the hanging coverts of Lord Northampton and Mr. Holbech, on the 

 side of them, it descends into that fine grazing district, geographic- 

 ally termed, " the Plain of Warwick." 



The name of a woodland country is a damper to many ; but the 

 Warwickshire woodlands are such as are seldom, if ever, met with. 



* la the year 1809 this place afforded a ti'omeadous run with Mr. Corbet's 

 hounds, when the fox was killed full twenty miles from the place he was 

 found. It gave birth to a poem by Mr. Edward (loulburn, called "Epwell 

 Hunt " (somewhat in the style of the " Billesdou Coplow " poem by Mr. Lowth), 

 in which he gave a most humorous, but faithful description of some of the 

 principal performers of the day. 



