GRANTHAM 



III 



headquarters, he is hkely to put in on the whole as 

 many days' hunting in the course of the season as 

 from any place, Melton only excepted. We shall 

 find that Grantham has, and always has had, a certain 

 number of regular visitors who, having once found 

 it out, continue to go there year after year. Grantham 

 has two excellent hotels, lodgings are to be found in 

 the town, and stabling is to be rented. 



But it is desirable to take a strong stud, in both 

 numbers and quality, to Grantham. The foxes are 

 stout, the Belvoir hounds travel fast, and the country 

 is not one that can be taken lightly anywhere. More- 

 over, round Grantham it is not all grass, for there 

 is plough and also some strong woodlands. If any 

 one wishes to see the right type of horse to take to 

 Grantham let him obtain permission to see Ferneley's 

 portraits of Sir Thomas Whichcote's horses, which 

 are let into the panels of the dining-room at Aswarby 

 Hall. They are big blood horses, and the greatest 

 pains was taken with their conditioning. It is better 

 to have a somewhat inferior horse in really hard 

 condition than a first-rate one short of muscle and 

 thick in the wind from want of proper treatment. 

 No one ever saw more sport than Sir Thomas Which- 

 cote or rode so consistently to hounds. And he 

 wisely never kept a bad horse and seldom parted 

 from a good one. He knew and trusted his horses, 

 and they obeyed his hand, both very important matters 

 in crossing a strong country. 



Grantham has always been a sporting town. Its 

 bankers and its manufacturers, as well as the squires, 

 the farmers and the parsons of the country round, 

 are and always have been devoted followers of the 

 Duke of Rutland's hounds. It was Grantham that, 

 when agricultural depression made a hunt subscrip- 



