HUNTING LOCALITIES 175 



Berkeley, which have already been mentioned, there 

 are the Garth and the South Berks hunts, of which the 

 first named comes nearest to London in the country 

 about Chertsey and Virginia Water, or in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Maidenhead Thicket, or Hawthorn Hill. 

 The country is a large one, but its hunting opera- 

 tions do not extend to the London side of the Thames, 

 so that its northern or eastern boundary is over twenty 

 miles away, while in a southerly direction the country 

 reaches almost to Odiham in Hants, where it joins 

 the H.H. Though some of its area has been lately 

 built over to a considerable extent, there is still much 

 good country in the Garth Hunt, and none better 

 from a riding point of view than that which lies im- 

 mediately to the south of the Bath road between 

 Maidenhead and Reading, as far as the South-Western 

 Railway line from Staines to Reading. South of this 

 railway Chobham Ridges is a huge open common, 

 but the heavily wooded Swinley Forest is also of vast 

 extent, and the latter is hardly an ideal foxhunting 

 district. On the Hampshire side of the country there 

 is little population, but the meets are somewhat remote 

 for the average follower who resides in the Ascot and 

 Windsor district, and hounds lie out every Thursday 

 night before hunting in the (often known as) Hartford 

 Bridge district. The pack hunt four days a week, 

 and the fields are generally large, though perhaps 

 largest in the Windsor district. Strangers, naturally 

 enough, visit this pack a good deal at odd times, but 

 the bulk of the following is composed of residents, 

 and when it is stated that Windsor, Ascot, Maiden- 

 head, and Wokingham are actually within the hunt, 

 while Henley, Reading, Aldershot, Farnham, and 

 other important residential places are on its boun- 



