WARWICKSHIRE 27 



In Mr, Corbet's time the hounds always went three or four times 

 in the season to Meriden, for the purpose of hunting what was called 

 "the Meriden country," and brilliant sport generally attended them. 

 Although the coverts here are large, they are so peculiarly situated, 

 that it is no uncommon occurrence to see a run of ten or twelve miles 

 an end in this country, and so good are the foxes that they generally 

 skirt the coverts ; or if they go into them, they will not turn right 

 or left ; and they are generally easy to get through for horses. The 

 fences here are larger than in the Stratford country, and, from the 

 hedges being often placed on a bank or cop, are not to be taken in 

 stroke, from which circumstance a horse has been styled a good 

 or a bad Meriden horse, in proportion as his temper would accom- 

 modate itself to the nature of them. A good creeper here is useful, 

 as indeed he is everywhere else. Meriden is an inn by the road- 

 side, six miles from Warwick, and twelve from Birmingham. Here 

 Mr. Corbet had a kennel ; but when Lord Middleton hunted the 

 country, his hounds lay at the beautiful village of Kenilworth. 



The Meriden country commences within four miles of Warwick, 

 and, taking Coventry for the centre, extends almost to the town of 

 Birmingham on the left ; then, joining Lord Anson's Atherstone 

 country, comes round on the right by Corley, Combe Abbey (Earl 

 of Craven's), Newbold, and Newnham (Earl of Denbigh's), within 

 three miles of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, where leaving Eugby 

 and Dunchurch a short distance on the left, and taking in the 

 coverts of Sir Theophilus Biddulph at Birbury, it proceeds to join 

 the Stratford country in the parishes of Ufton and Long Itchington, 

 and so on to that fine grazing district already described ; so that it 

 has more than once happened that a fox found in the Meriden 

 country has led the hounds home to their kennel at Stratford. 



The extent of the Warwickshire country exceeds any that I have 

 ever seen, or heard of, and the preservation of it, when Mr. Corbet 

 hunted it, w^as unequalled. In short, it might have been called a 

 preserve of foxes. Independent of the resident noblemen and gentle- 

 men of fortune, well-wishers to fox-hunting, the Warwickshire 

 yeomen and farmers are for the most part sportsmen, and numbers 

 of them attend the hounds when within their reach. The Stratford 

 Hunt Club was then held at the White Lion Inn at Stratford-on- 



