SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN 



HUNTING 



FOXHOUNDS 



The only pack of foxhounds to which 

 Middlesex can lay claim is the original Old 

 Berkeley Hunt, which ceased to hunt the 

 county more than half a century ago and is 

 now divided into the Old Berkeley East 

 and the Old Berkeley West, whose kennels 

 are at Chorleywood in Hertfordshire and 

 at Hazelmere Park, High Wycombe, respec- 

 tively. 



The original Old Berkeley Hunt was 

 formed by Frederick Augustus, fifth Lord 

 Berkeley, who adopted orange yellow or 

 ' tawny ' coats for it in commemoration of the 

 fact stated by Smith in his MS. history of 

 the Berkeley family that 'a former Lord 

 Berkeley ' kept thirty huntsmen in ' tawny 

 coats' and his hounds at the village of 

 Charing, now Charing Cross in the centre 

 of London, and hunted in the vicinity. 1 It 

 was not so called, however, till after Lord 

 Berkeley's death in 1810, when this name 

 was given to it in memory of its founder 

 by Mr. Harvey Combe, who succeeded him 

 as master, and for a similar reason retained 

 the Berkeley livery. 2 



The country hunted by Lord Berkeley 

 has probably never been exceeded in extent, 

 though authorities differ as to its exact limits. 

 ' Nimrod ' in his Hunting Tours, written in 

 1835, says that it extended from Scratch 

 Wood, seven miles from London and then 

 part of Wormwood Scrubbs, to Cirencester, 

 a distance of upwards of eighty miles ; 

 while 'Cecil,' writing in 1854, makes Scratch 

 Wood five miles from London, and says that 

 the Old Berkeley country extended to beyond 

 Thornbury in Gloucestershire. 3 Mr. George 

 Grantley Berkeley, whose Reminiscences of a 

 Huntsman was also published in 1854, says 

 that his father ' used to hunt all the country 

 from Kensington Gardens to Berkeley Castle 

 and Bristol,' and his opinion as regards 

 Kensington appears to be confirmed by the 

 statement made to him by old Tom Oldaker, 

 Lord Berkeley's huntsman, that he had while 

 with his father once ' found a fox in Scratch 

 Wood and lost him in rough ground and 

 cover in Kensington.' 4 There were kennels 



1 Reminiscences of a Huntsman, 25. 

 ' Cecil, Records of the Chase, 32, 33 ; Remi- 

 niscences of a Huntsman, 25. 

 8 Records of the Chase, 32, 33. 

 ' Reminiscences of a Huntsman, 25, 26. 



at Cranford and at Nettlebed near Henley on 

 Thames, and another, Grantley Berkeley be- 

 lieved, at Gerrards Cross in Buckinghamshire. 

 ' Where else the hounds used to put up in that 

 wide stretch of country,' he adds, ' I know 

 not, but I suppose occasionally at inns.' 6 



At the time ' Nimrod ' wrote, the subscrip- 

 tion to the Old Berkeley did not exceed 700 

 per annum, the remainder being made up by 

 Mr. Harvey Combe and Mr. Marjoribanks. 

 Six hunters and a hack were provided for a 

 given annual sum by Mr. Tilbury for Henry 

 and Robert Oldaker, the sons of Lord Berkeley's 

 old huntsman, who were respectively hunts- 

 man and whipper-in to Mr. Harvey Combe, 

 ' but they are never at a loss for a horse, for 

 Mr. Harvey Combe always has a good stud. ' 6 

 There seems to have been no very distinctive 

 character in the Old Berkeley pack, owing to 

 the fact that Tom Oldaker had not bred 

 hounds for many years past but trusted to 

 drafts to keep up his kennel a defect which 

 his son Henry did his best to remedy. The 

 hounds were however 



very steady . . . very true to the line and with a 

 scent pretty sure of their fox ... I saw [says 

 Nimrod] no fault in the condition of the Old 

 Berkeley hounds, taking into consideration the 

 great extent of country they travel over, the 

 frequent change of kennel, and the very wet 

 weather to which they are exposed.' 



The sale of this pack at Hyde Park Corner 

 in 1842 is described by Mr. Robert Vyner 

 in his Notitia Fenatica as the ' most remark- 

 able ever known.' 



The lots sold were thirteen in number, making 

 127 hounds, exclusive of whelps ; their produce 

 was 6,51 1 guineas, or upwards of Blooper couple. 

 It was Mr. Osbaldeston's old pack that realised 

 this enormous sum. It had been sold conditionally 

 some years earlier to Mr. Harvey Combe, and 

 upon Mr. Combe's relinquishing the Old Berkeley 

 country where these hounds had been hunting 

 they were sent to Mr. Tattersall's to be sold by 

 auction. Report says it was a fictitious sale ; 

 whether it was or not it gave employment to 

 gentlemen of the long robe, there being some 

 previous agreement between Mr. Osbaldeston and 

 Mr. Combe relative to the price the hounds 

 might fetch if sold at the time when Mr. Combe 

 chose to part with them. 8 



" Ibid. 



'Nimrod, Hunting Tours, 125; cf. Records of 

 the Chase, 53. ' Ibid. 197. 



8 Robert Vyner, Notitia yenttica, a treatise on 

 Fox Hunting (6th ed.), 22, 23. 



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