The South Oxfordshire. 221 



is a well-known meet — for Ashleys, Brockes Farze, 

 Cadwell, and Holcombe. Stadhampton is for Chisle- 

 hampton^ after which we get west of the Thame 

 Brook, where we have Baldon for the Home Coverts, 

 Sandford Brake, Garsington Hays, and Allen^s Gorse. 

 The woods of Nuneham Park are lent by the Old 

 Berkshire after the latter have finished cub-hunting. 

 Bullingdon Barracks and Waterstock are for Open 

 Magdalen, Brasenose Wood and Coombe Wood — all 

 this western corner between the big river and its 

 tributary the Thame being of a light plough descrip- 

 tion. Throughout the South Oxfordshire Vale proper 

 the coverts are small. This, added to small fields and 

 good foxes, puts everything in favour of sport ; and 

 most of their best runs of late years have been in this 

 part of their country. Even last winter, in spite of 

 the lengthened frost which they had in common with 

 their neighbours, was marked as a good season in the 

 Vale. 



Friday is always held in the deep clay woodlands 

 that, passing the town of Oxford, run a corner into 

 the Bicester country, and are here and there neutral 

 with that pack. (For more exact definition vide 

 Bicester aforetold). Wet grim woods are these, dark 

 within and cold without ; but they make hounds, and 

 they give a certain amount of sport, though their 

 depths are unfathomable and their rides bid defiance 

 to a stranger. 



" The Quarters '^ is a designation quite as frequently 

 applied to these great coverts, and perhaps more 

 correctly, than that of the Oxford Woods — inasmuch 

 as some of the cluster lie in Buckinghamshire. It 



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