DATES OF THE PRINCIPAL HUNTS 17 



separation, and Lord Redesdale and Messrs. Lang- 

 ston and Webb formed a triumvirate of masters. The 

 South Oxfordshire country dates from 1845, and before 

 that was part of a huge country which included the 

 Old Berkshire and the Vale of White Horse, and 

 which goes back to 1760. The V.W.H. was taken 

 from the Old Berkshire in 1831, and was divided into 

 the two divisions, of Cirencester and Cricklade, in 1886. 



The Berkeley (Lord Fitzhardinge's) is a part of what 

 remains of the once largest country in the kingdom, 

 and which has for its two ends the present Berkeley 

 country in Gloucestershire, and the present old Berke- 

 ley countries — east and west — in Herts, Bucks, and 

 Middlesex. At what exact period the whole inter- 

 vening country was in one hand is very doubtful, and 

 the probable truth is that the Berkeley family in remote 

 times hunted bits of it occasionally, and had establish- 

 ments at either end of the district. In Baily's Htmting 

 Directory it is boldly asserted that the Berkeley Hunt 

 dates from 1613, and that in 1807 Colonel Berkeley 

 (afterwards Lord Segrave and after that again Lord 

 Fitzhardinge) started the present pack. Then again 

 we learn from the same authority that the Old Berkeley 

 Hunt dates from the eighteenth century, which is a 

 vague statement, to say the least of it. 



What is practically certain is that the Berkeley hunt- 

 ing establishment was in its day one of the largest and 

 most important the world has ever known, and some idea 

 of its magnificence can be gleaned from Grantley Berke- 

 ley's Reminiscences of a Huntsman^ published in 1854. 

 The author of this work — who was master of the 

 Oakley from 1829 to 1834 — writes of his father, the 

 fifth Earl of Berkeley, that he retained the orange, or 

 yellow, or tawny plush for his hunt, and that Mr. 

 2 



