lo THE COMPLETE FOXHUNTER 



hunt from some one in authority, something lii^e a 

 right of free warren. This is a very probable 

 solution of the matter, but there is something more 

 to be said concerning the Stainton Dale, and that is 

 that in all probability they have hunted nothing but 

 foxes— at all events since the days of Charles I, when 

 the adjoining royal Pickering Forest was disafforested. 

 The operations of this hunt are now confined to 

 a narrow strip of country, which is never more than 

 five miles wide, and often less, and a great part of the 

 hunting has always taken place on the cliffs, some of 

 which (Hayburn Wyke, to wit) are densely wooded. 

 These cliffs have always swarmed with foxes, and 

 according to local tradition there have been no stags 

 on the cliffs for more than two hundred years. It is 

 probable then, though the evidence is only presump- 

 tive, that foxes were hunted in this locality at a very 

 remote period, and though it has kept no records it is 

 quite possible that the Stainton Dale is one of the very 

 oldest, if not actually the oldest hunt in the kingdom, 

 while it also may be said to have claims to have hunted 

 foxes long before the fox was the general quarry. 



The claims of the Cranborne Chase Hunt — of which 

 the Blackmore Vale is the present-day representative — 

 are somewhat vague. Miss Serrell, in With Hound 

 and Terrier in the Fields boldly states that "the Cran- 

 borne Chase Hunt had the distinction of being the first 

 country in which hounds were kept to hunt fox to the 

 exclusion of other quarry." She then goes on to say 

 that Mr. Thomas Fownes, who purchased certain rights 

 in the chase in the middle of the seventeenth century, 

 hunted his hounds from Stapleton, and built up a pack 

 which was said to be the best in England. In the 

 Encyclopcedia of Sport it is stated that one of the earliest 



