214 RECOEDS AND BEMINISOENCES OF GOODWOOD 



It is recorded that the noted Charlton pack was 

 the first ever established in this country, as the 

 following narrative will verify. This account was 

 originally printed in the form of a pamphlet, a copy 

 of which came into my possession, and which by 

 desire I had reprinted. The whole narrative is so 

 interesting, that I here insert it verbatim. 



THE CHARLTON HUNT. 



We have all heard of Goodwood ; but where is Charlton ? A 

 little more than a hundred years ago these questions would have 

 been exactly reversed ; then all the world had heard of Charlton 

 while the glories of Goodwood, now become a household word 

 among us, slumbered in the womb of time. In an account of the 

 Jud-es' progress to Chichester in 1749, they are described as 

 being "entertained by the Duke of Richmond at his seat near 

 Charlton^ The writer evidently either did not know the name 

 of Goodwood, or considered it would give no information to his 

 readers; "near Charlton" was quite sufficient guide as to its 

 locality. Charlton was the Melton Mowbray of its day, and the 

 Charlton Hunt, the most famous in England, the resort of the 

 great and wealthy, eager to participate in our national sport of 

 fox-hunting. King William III. and the Grand Duke of Tuscany, 

 then a guest in England, are recorded as having been to Charlton 

 to witness a fox-chase, and even the softer sex joined in the hunt, 

 held their assembhes in the village, and probably participated m 

 the pleasure of eating a Charlton pie, a dainty then well known, 

 though now entirely forgotten-forgotten, as Charlton itself now 

 is- the very traditions have nearly- died out, scarcely a villager 

 can now teU of its former renown or talk of the -good old times r 

 But to keep these in remembrance, to commemorate something 

 of the glories of Charlton, the writer of these few pages has 

 collected such information as may interest those acquainted with 



