170 FOX-HUNTING FROM SHIRE TO SHIRE 



a Leicestershire hunting-box for the Lowther family 

 for about half a century, and is a comfortable 

 residence surrounded by cedars and clipped yews 

 situated within a mile of Oakham. Containing a 

 large collection of sporting pictures and trophies, 

 it is a store house of hunting records ; the old pictures 

 connected with the early masterships of the Cottes- 

 more, and pedigree books of hounds dating back 

 to 1780, reviving the memory of a glorious past. 

 Adorning the walls are the portraits of many by- 

 gone celebrities of the 

 chase, two of which, oc- 

 cupying prominent posi- 

 tions, represent Lord 

 Lonsdale's god-fatherly 

 " sponser's for sport." 

 The late Lord Henry 

 Bentinck, so famous in 

 the annals of hound 

 breeding, when master to 

 the Burton — and the late 

 Sir Thomas Whichcote, of 

 As war by Park, Lincoln- 

 shire, who owned one of the finest studs of hunters 

 seen in Leicestershire, and was a noted hard rider 

 with the Belvoir. Along one of the corridors is a 

 continuous row^ of portraits of hunters, all of which 

 have made 500 guineas before qualifying for a 

 position in the collection. Some of these were the 

 heroes of the great sale at Tattersall's, July 21, 

 1898, when Lord Lonsdale resigned the mastership 

 of the Quorn. On that occasion there was an 

 immense muster at Knightsbridge, and business 

 was simply marvellous. Fifty-four hunters made 

 an average of about 268 guineas — -many of which 

 had been carrying Tom Firr — and the horses 



C-'i 



Sport and agriculture. 



