SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN 



THE LAMBTON, THE DURHAM 



COUNTY, AND THE SOUTH 



DURHAM FOXHOUNDS 



Famous as Lord Darlington's Hounds must 

 always remain in the annals of fox-hunting, it is 

 doubtful whether, at all events in the county of 

 Durham, they were ever so enshrined in popular 

 affection as those of his equally great compeer, 

 Mr. Ralph Lambton. Yet it should not be over- 

 looked that this pack was originally instituted, 

 not by him, but by his elder brother, Mr. Wil- 

 liam Henry Lambton, and the exact date is fixed 

 by a letter written by the latter to his friend 

 Mr. Robinson from London in April, 1793 : 



Having given up hunting in Leicestershire, I 

 purpose keeping a small pack of hounds in Durham. 

 I have reason to think that Lord Darlington and my- 

 self shall agree about the division of the country. As 

 you are a good sportsman pray let me know what can 

 be done in your neighbourhood to promote our sport. 

 From the banks of the river to the seaside we might 

 surely improve the country by inclosing some patches 

 of whin, or making other coverts. I am sure you 

 will have the goodness to keep a strict look-out that 

 no litters are destroyed during the breeding season. 

 I will thank yoji for any hints, and shall be obliged if 

 you will assure persons that upon fair cases I will 

 satisfy them for any loss they may sustain. 1 * 



William Henry Lambton was the son of 

 General Lambton, of Harraton Hall, who com- 

 manded the Coldstream Guards, and raised the 

 2nd Battalion of the 23rd Regiment, now the 

 famous 68th or Durham Light Infantry. There 

 is reason to believe that after his retirement from 

 the army, General Lambton kept a small pack of 

 hounds, with which he hunted fox or hare indis- 

 criminately in the northern part of Durham. 



Mr. W. H. Lambton lost no time in starting 

 his hunting establishment, for having presum- 

 ably settled with Lord Darlington as to the 

 limits of his new country " he purchased Lord 

 Talbot's pack of sixty couples of hounds, which 

 had hunted the Sudbury now the Meynell 

 country in Derbyshire, taking over Lord Talbot's 

 hunt-servants with them. These were James 

 Shelley as huntsman, and George Deane (who 

 had whipped in to the Prince Regent's hounds 

 in Hampshire) and Dick Norman as whippers- 

 in. But, unhappily, Mr. Lambton did not 

 live long to enjoy the fruits of his enter- 

 prise ; within three years his health failed, and 



" The F'uU, 24 April, 1901. 



" This is understood to have included all the county 

 of Durham north of a line drawn from Castle Eden on 

 the east to Wblsingham on the west, thence north 

 through Edmondbyers to Corbridge in the present 

 Tynedale country, thus including part of Northum- 

 berland. A portion of the Raby country is omitted 

 from mention in the operations of the Raby Pack in 

 1793, though no direct allusion is made to its cession 

 to Mr. Lambton. 



leaving England he died at Pisa in December, 

 1 797.** Short as his tenure of office had been, it 

 had sufficiently opened his neighbours' eyes to 

 the charms of fox-hunting in first-rate style to 

 make them anxious for a continuance of it, and 

 pending the time when it would be convenient 

 for his younger brother, Ralph Lambton, to take 

 on the hounds, Mr. Baker of Elemore came 

 forward and hunted the country with a small sub- 

 scription until 1798, in which year Mr. Lamb- 

 ton commenced his mastership. For several 

 seasons he retained Shelley as huntsman, after 

 which he hunted hounds himself uninterruptedly 

 until 1829, when owing to two very bad falls, 

 in 1825 and 1827, he relinquished the horn to 

 Jack Winter, his first whip. In the first six 

 seasons the hounds were kennelled at Lambton, 

 but when, in 1814, Lord Darlington gave 

 Mr. Lambton his Sedgefield country now the 

 cream of the South Durham Hunt kennels be- 

 came also necessary at Sedgefield. Like Lord 

 Darlington, Ralph Lambton omitted none of the 

 duties of a huntsman, paying the greatest atten- 

 tion to all details of kennel management, never 

 failing to feed and exercise his hounds himself 

 and taking the keenest interest in their breeding. 

 His type of hound was a good deal smaller than 

 Lord Darlington's, being no more than 24 inches, 

 or even less according to some authorities, and 

 his great pleasure was to have them strictly 

 uniform in size. He scoured England for the 

 best hound blood, being particularly partial to 

 the Duke of Beaufort's and Mr. Warde's strains. 

 Although his hounds are invariably spoken of as 

 ' Ralph Lambton 's,' their proper designation was 

 ' The Lambton,' owing to the master's accepting 

 a small subscription. The amount of this 

 appears to have varied : the ubiquitous Nimrod 

 who included a visit to Mr. Lambton and 

 Sedgefield in his Northern Tour places it at 

 ' about 800,' ** but this is obviously incorrect, as 

 Mr. Ord, of Sands Hall himself, as will be 

 seen, a quondam master of the South Durham 

 Hunt whose great-uncle was hon. secretary to 

 the Lambton Hunt, is able to state authoritatively 

 that the largest subscription ever received in one 

 year was no more than 402 171., or almost 

 exactly half Nimrod's estimate. 20 But even the 

 larger estimate could not have gone far towards 

 such an establishment as Mr. Lambton's ; for he 

 invariably hunted four and often five days a week, 

 had four admirably mounted men in the field, 

 and kept sixty couple of hounds. 



"Mr. W. H. Lambton was no mere tox-hunting 

 squire. He had travelled a great deal on the con- 

 tinent, and in Parliament, where he represented Dur- 

 ham for seven yean, his fluent oratory attracted 

 attention. 



" Nimrod's Northern Tour. 



K The SeJgeJieU Country, by the author of The Fox- 

 buntcr'i Vade Mecum, W. Dresser & Sons, Darlington, 

 1904. 



393 



