196 Hunting Countries of England. 



New Wood, The Grove) are the usual draw.* Yery 

 sporting coverts they are; and frequently act as the 

 halfway house for a good travelling fox on his way 

 between the Oxford Woodlands and the Clay dons. 

 Chilton, near Thame, overlooking the Aylesbury Vale, 

 is always the Bicester meet for their opening Thursday; 

 and is a very popular rendezvous — tempting the 

 presence of many of the South Oxfordshire Hunt, a 

 great number of Oxonians, and a strong force of the 

 Baron^s men. The first draw is generally told ofi" for 

 Nottley Abbey (where Squire Reynolds always finds a 

 fox or two) — on the borders of the Old Berkeley and 

 the South Oxfordshire. From here the Bicester last 

 year ran a very long point, over the flints and through 

 roughest woods, to West Wycombe. Another very 

 favourite covert — though scarcely so good a certainty 

 — is Chearsley Firs, which stands by the side of a 

 brook just big enough to tempt, and always provoca- 

 tive of lavish grief. From here to the Claydons or 

 the Wootton Coverts is a very pretty gallop — the 

 latter line probably taking hounds by way of Ashenden, 

 where Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild a few years 

 ago bought a charming property from the Duke of 

 Marlborough, is now building a house, and has some 

 well-preserved little coverts — the chief of them called 

 the Decoy. Waddesdon Cross Roads (four miles from 

 Aylesbury) is in the best of the grass. The fences 

 here are, perhaps, more intricate than in the rest of the 



* Tithenhall Wood, Ham Wood, and Oring Hill, close to the 

 fixture and between Wootton and the Claydon Woods, should be 

 added. 



