SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN 



some years Mr. Webber successfully hunted 

 the hounds himself, and showed very good 

 sport, especially in his grass country. The 

 hounds are now hunted by a professional 

 huntsman ; George Sheppard, from the Hert- 

 fordshire, being the huntsman in 1900. 



The Hertfordshire part of the Old Berke- 

 ley country is mostly arable, and the coverts 

 are very large. Shooting goes on extensively, 

 and there is much pheasant preserving and 

 breeding, but foxes are probably just as plen- 

 tiful now as they ever were, for we find many 

 references to their scarcity in the old maga- 

 zines ; coverts in the Old Berkeley country 

 being often drawn blank. Bricket Wood is 

 several times named in these old magazines 

 as being one of the best meets, probably on 

 account of its being a sure find ' When 

 there are no foxes in Bricket, there are no 

 devils in hell.' This big wood extends to 

 800 acres, and has been carefully looked 

 after by its present owner, the Hon. A. 

 Holland Hibbert, a good all-round sports- 

 man, who was for several years the ener- 

 getic secretary of the hunt, succeeding Mr. 



Harvey Fellows, who held the office for 

 twenty-one years. On one side of Bricket 

 Wood, and all round Stanmore, Newberries 

 and Scratch Wood (all joint coverts with 

 the Hertfordshire), the country is good scent- 

 ing grass, and many are the gallops which 

 have been enjoyed in this part of the country. 

 We read of a run from Newberries in 1873, 

 thirty-five minutes 'all over grass'; and there 

 was a great run there from Newberries to 

 Northaw in 1898, during Mr. Webber's 

 mastership. 



The briars in Newberries were so thick in 

 the old days that Boxall the huntsman used 

 to resort to the expedient of taking a terrier 

 into the thickest part of the covert, and 

 pinching his ear to make him squeak, that 

 being the only way to induce the hounds to 

 face the briars. 



Amongst other old landmarks in this coun- 

 try indicative of the ' sport of kings ' is Gott's 

 Monument, a tall stone obelisk near Chalfont, 

 which was erected by George III. solely as a 

 hunting landmark to enable him to know 

 where he was. 



HARRIERS 



Previous to the time when regular packs of 

 foxhounds were kept many landowners had a 

 few hounds, with which they hunted deer, 

 fox or hare, whichever they happened to find. 

 After the establishment of foxhound packs, 

 many of these private packs were still kept 

 up, but were devoted to hunting the hare, or 

 on rare occasions a turned out deer. Some 

 of the Hertfordshire packs of harriers were 

 very carefully bred, many of them from the 

 old southern hound, and for some time were a 

 distinct breed from the foxhound. Most of 

 the packs of harriers in Hertfordshire were only 

 kept for short periods during the pleasure of 

 the particular master, who generally hunted 

 over his own and his neighbours' land. He 

 kept the hounds at his own expense, and took 

 them out when he felt so inclined, the pack 

 being in no sense a public one. 



Almost the oldest private pack in Hertford- 

 shire was that kept by successive Marquises of 

 Salisbury at Hatfield, with which the country 

 in the Hatfield neighbourhood was hunted 

 until 1793, when Lady Salisbury became 

 mistress of the Hatfield Foxhounds. 



Squire Wortham's Harriers are famous in 

 history. They hunted in the Royston dis- 

 trict, and were in their day a most justly 

 popular pack. One famous meet took place 

 every year on ' Little Fair Day,' at the top 

 of ' One Hill,' an eminence on Royston 



Heath. Hither flocked all the followers of 

 the hunt, regular and irregular, and they 

 were seldom disappointed in their sport. 

 ' Old Matt,' the huntsman, and Sir Peter 

 Soame of Heydon, the baronet, were notable 

 figures in this hunt ; the former renowned 

 for his stentorian voice and holloa, which 

 could be heard, it is said, from Therfield to 

 Royston, and the latter remarkable, and prob- 

 ably uncomfortable, in his skin-tight breeches, 

 which he only managed to get into at all by 

 keeping them damp over night, and even then 

 he could not always manage it in the morning 

 without resorting to the expedient of sliding 

 down the balusters. 



On the borders of Hertfordshire and Bed- 

 fordshire, in the district round Biggleswade, 

 Mr. Race's Harriers have for the last 100 

 years enjoyed a high reputation. That fine 

 old sportsman, Mr. George Race of Biggies- 

 wade, a good judge of hounds, is still alive, 

 and still enjoys a day's hunting in his pony 

 carriage. He is now over eighty-two years 

 of age, and for the last sixty years has been 

 master of these harriers. His father kept 

 them for forty years before him. It is surely 

 unprecedented to find a country hunted regu- 

 larly for 100 years by father and son. 



Mr. Delme' kept staghounds and harriers 

 at the Priory, Hitchin, on a scale of great 

 magnificence. He was considered the best 



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