THE AMALGAMATION. 29 



north by the chain of woods from Taplow to Stoke, and by the 

 Great Western Railway from Sloiio^h to I.amyley. Tt was and 

 is still split into two parts by the Slough Road, across which 

 hares scarcely ever rim. On the west side of the country lay the 

 villages of Eton Wick, Dorney and Burnham. This was the 

 country previously hunted over by the Oppidan Hunt, and below 

 the railway at Salt Hill hares used to be very scarce. In the 

 Salt Hill country, however, and up towards Stoke and Burnham, 

 they were much more plentiful. On the east of the Slough Road 

 lay the villages of Datchet, Wyrardisbury (Wraysbury), Horton 

 and Remenham. Most of the country is plough, and what grass 

 there is, lies chiefly on the Dorney side of the country. Near the 

 village of Datchet Ditton Park is situated with its house sur- 

 rounded by a moat across which more than one E.C.H. hare 

 has swum. 



During the ten years after the amalgamation the kennels 

 were at the Black Pots end of the Playing Fields, and Ward, 

 the groundsman who tenanted the cottage and whose backyard 

 took the place of kennels, acted as kennel huntsman. There is 

 no information about this m.an Ward save that the hounds were 

 kennelled at his cottage until 1876, when Rowland Hunt 

 transferred them to better kennels up town. Here is a letter 

 from Rev. W. Vickers, the brother of one of the early 

 whips : 



*' It was my elder brother V. W. Vickers (who died in 1899) 

 who was second whip in 1873, with W. A. (Billy) Harford as 

 first whip and Hon. C. Harbord as master. 



*' The pack were kennelled at Ward's Lodge, at the extreme 

 east end of the Playing Fields, Ward acting as K.H. 



'' In 1874 Harford was master, with L. Heywood Jones and 

 Hon. E. W. Parker as whips. My brother was responsible in 

 1873 for the account of sport reported in the Chronicle, and was 

 occasionally very riled by the editor, who, like Miss Lucy 

 Grimes, of the * Swillingford Patriot ' in Spongers Sporting 

 Tour, used to correct his effusions by substituting * puss ' for 

 * hare,' and so on ! He hunted the Trinity Beas^les at Cambridge 

 for two seasons, succeeding that fine sportsman G. H. Longman. 



**0f the School tutors of my day, C. WoIIey-Dod, the 

 tallest and thinnest of Masters, was a keen beagler, also my tutor 

 G. R. Dupuis — ^both of them in long frock coats and top hats. 

 A. Cockshott too was a good friend to, though not a follower 

 of, the hunt ; on more than one occasion securing us a bill-day. 

 One of these, I remember, was to Mr. Hall-Say's place, Oakley 

 Court. I don't remember much of the day's sport, but have a 



