HUNTING LOCALITIES 177 



a mile or two of Esher. Not so long ago the suburbs 

 ceased at the village first named, but huge areas of 

 land have now been requisitioned by the builder in 

 the neighbourhood of Weybridge and Woking, and 

 the hunting line has been gradually forced to the 

 south of the Guildford railway. At Cobham, too, 

 building estates are being laid out, but for all that 

 the Surrey Union have a great deal of wild, thinly- 

 populated country, which, though hilly in places, is 

 productive of capital sport. Those who know the 

 district will be aware that there are comparatively 

 few railways in Surrey. On the eastern side of this 

 hunt there is the Brighton line to Dorking, Horsham, 

 and Portsmouth, and on the extreme west the South- 

 western line to Portsmouth. Between these two there 

 are no railways beyond the loop line from Surbiton 

 and Leatherhead to Guildford, and as a matter of fact 

 one may hunt all day with the Surrey Union hounds 

 without seeing a railway, or even a village. Indeed, in 

 the greater part of the country one might be a hundred 

 miles from town instead of within thirty, and this is 

 accounted for by the fact of there being (as stated) few 

 railways, no towns except on the outskirts of the hunt, 

 many large residential estates which are too far away 

 to attract the builder, and lastly because of the physical 

 conformation of a great part of the country. Fields 

 are largest, perhaps, in the country nearest Leatherhead, 

 or where hounds meet near the old Surrey boundary 

 in the neighbourhood of Walton-on-the-Heath or 

 Tadworth, but the best country is vale land below the 

 hills, and possibly the best of this is on the Burstow 

 boundary, east of Dorking, about Betchworth and 

 Leigh. Hounds are generally out three days a week, 

 and it is the case that hard riders are in this hunt as 

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