A HISTORY OF DORSET 



the latter was away, and then hunted the Roch- 

 dale Harriers from 1880 to 1887 with great 

 success. He has had several good kennel hunts- 

 men during his time. Old Bartlett was his first, 

 who had been huntsman to tlie V.W.H. (Lord 

 Bathurst's), and also to Lord Fitzwilliam's 

 hounds. After him came Kane Croft, who re- 

 mained seven years, a capital kennel huntsman 

 and whip who had gained his experience in 

 Ireland, Hertfordshire, the Isle of Wight, the 

 Belvoir, and the Woodland Pytchley countries. 

 Then came Stratton, who had been huntsman 

 to Lord Portman's, and has now gone to the 

 Fife. 



William Maiden, who is now kennel hunts- 

 man, came to the South Dorset from the New- 

 market and Thurlow. Before that he had been 

 with the County Galway, East Sussex, Heythrop, 

 Essex, Brocklesby, Lord Galway's, and Duke of 

 Buccleuch's hounds. When Mr. RadclifFe first 

 came to the South Dorset there were but few 

 really home-bred hounds, the rest of the pack 

 being drafts from the Belvoir, Cheshire, and 

 Lord Portman's. He sent some of his best 

 bitches to the Oakley to start building up his 

 pack and to get bone, and after that chiefly to 

 the Belvoir for quality and straightness, and to 

 the Grafton, a pack he considers to transmit 

 good working powers. The produce have been a 

 very fast, level, and musical lot of hounds, with 

 wonderfully good necks and shoulders and plenty 

 of bone. One of the best runs the South Dorset 

 have had in Mr. RadcIifFe's mastership was on 

 16 November, 1896. Meeting at Cheselbourne 

 they found in a pit between Cheselbourne and 

 Dewlish a fox that ran by Milborne Wood and 

 Athelhampton to Tincleton Hang and down to 

 ClyfFe House. Crossing the water meadows by 

 Woodsford he went through Knighton Wood and 

 Withby Bed and was killed in a cottage garden 

 at Broadmayne, every hound being up at the 

 finish. The time was one hour and fifty minutes 

 and the point was something over ten miles — 

 fifteen or sixteen as hounds ran. There was no 

 real check all through, and three sets of water- 

 meadows and three rivers were crossed. 



The South Dorset Hunt has gone through 

 several serious crises from dearth of foxes and 

 other causes, but things are brighter now and, 

 with a popular master as Mr. RadclifFe is, will 

 so continue. The backbone of the hunt is to 

 be found in the strong support of the yeomen 

 farmers, who form a large portion of the field 

 and go as well as they preserve foxes. The 

 most interesting covert in the country is 

 Melcombe Park, a huge succession of woods. 

 It lies on the edge of the South Dorset Hunt, 

 adjoining the Blackmore Vale and close to a 

 portion of Lord Portman's country. Although 

 nearly every week, sometimes more than once, 

 one of the packs runs through or into this covert, 

 it is always full of foxes, and the writer has seen 



3 



as many as ten or eleven foxes in a single 

 morning there. In some parts of the country 

 there are wild expanses of heath where will be 

 found the worst of riding with the best of foxes. 

 But a Dorset heath man will ride the roughest 

 part as fast and as safely as the best of country, 

 the great secret of course being to ride it fast and 

 leave the horse alone. 



Lord Portman's Hounds 



The history of these hounds, like that of other 

 Dorset packs, begins in 1858, when Mr. Far- 

 quharson gave up the county. Their country ex- 

 tends some fifteen miles north and south and eigh- 

 teen miles east and west, lying chiefly in Dorset, 

 but with a small portion in Wilts and Hants. The 

 country is bounded by the South and West Wilts, 

 the Blackmore Vale, the South Dorset, the Wilton, 

 and the New Forest. Edward, first Viscount 

 Portman, got together a small pack in the first 

 instance, with his son, the present Viscount 

 Portman, acting as field master, and John Dinni- 

 combe as huntsman. At first foxes were so 

 scarce that in the sixty-two days' hunting of the 

 first season five days were blank, only twenty- 

 nine foxes were killed, and twenty earthed. But 

 matters soon improved ; foxes were better pre- 

 served when covert owners found they would be 

 hunted. 



J. Smith succeeded Dinnicombe and remained 

 as huntsman for many years. In 1873 he was 

 succeeded by Dyer, who was a very short time 

 with the pack ; but Joe Moss, the next huntsman, 

 who had whipped in to Dyer, carried the horn 

 for twenty-six years, and was a most capable and 

 popular huntsman. He was born in Suffolk, and 

 started his hunting career in Essex, where his 

 father hunted a pack of harriers at Writtle. His 

 first experience with foxhounds was with the 

 Surrey Union ; then he served with Lord 

 Leconfield's hounds in Sussex under Shepherd. 

 After a while with the Puckeridge he went to 

 the Cattistock, when Lord Poltimore was 

 master. He began with Lord Portman's as 

 whip to John Smith in 1870, and after two 

 years he went to the Duke of Buccleuch, then 

 to Mr. Corbet in Cheshire, where he found in 

 the Cheshire kennels the Poltimore bitch pack, 

 which had been purchased for a large sum of 

 money, and afterwards had to be destroyed on 

 account of hydrophobia. 



After that he returned to Lord Portman as 

 whip to Dyer and eventually succeeded him as 

 huntsman. His two successors, Stratton and 

 Sliarpe, did not stop many seasons, and the present 

 huntsman is Sam Dickinson, who is doing 

 extremely well. His previous experience had 

 been with the Fitzwilliam, Burton, Lord Galway's, 

 and the Rufford. The hounds are from some of 

 the best strains of blood in England, and at 

 different periods the Belvoir, Oakley, Fitzwilliam, 

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