JOHN OF THE HILL 



mentioned above had greatly increased, Lord Gainsborough 

 separated from the association and took as his share of the 

 hounds twenty-five couples, with which he began to hunt the 

 country now known as the Cottesmore. There is still at Belvoir 

 a somewhat voluminous correspondence which passed between 

 the Duke and Lord Gainsborough as to the possession of a 

 certain large caldron, used for cooking the hounds' food, to 

 which both noble masters laid claim. The smallness of the 

 sum assigned for the large staff of hunt-servants, including 

 two cooks, during the time of the joint ownership of the 

 hounds, was not intended probably to cover more than the 

 common expenditure, and each of the partners must have 

 supplemented it considerably. The date of 1732, if it does 

 not mark the beginning of the Belvoir pack, doubtless does 

 give us the origin of the country and of the better preserva- 

 tion of foxes, for " Old Noel," as Colonel Cooke calls Lord 

 Gainsborough, hunted an immense territory, including the 

 whole or parts of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Rutland- 

 shire, and Nottinghamshire. The Belvoir pack would seem 

 therefore, before this date, to have had the estates of the 

 Duke of Rutland and the Lincolnshire side of their present 

 territory as their peculiar field. It was not till some years 

 later that the limits of the Quorn (Mr. Meynell's) Hunt and 

 the Belvoir were definitely agreed upon, as Mr. John Welby 

 tells us. 



"As the Cottesmore and Quorn countries border on the 

 Belvoir country south and west, a few extracts from Mr. 

 Noel's journal will not be out of place, as they note the 

 condition of the hunting in the neighbouring hunts. 



" Mr. Noel was a contemporary of Mr. Meynell's, and the 

 copy of the agreement about the boundaries of their countries 

 is worth recording, as both were neighbours of the Belvoir 

 Hunt. The Cottesmore country has always been considered 

 one of the best in England. Mr. Noel's journal records 

 chases from 1766 to 178 1. After Mr. Noel, Lord Lonsdale 

 hunted the country for forty years, with the exception of four 

 or five years, from 1798 to 1802, when the hounds were 

 kennelled at Stocken Hall. . . . 



33 D 



