HUNTS AND THEIR HISTORY 173 



known by that name was not hunted before, but 

 there was until his time no organised hunt. Mr. 

 Osbaldeston took the country in 1815, formed a 

 Hunt Club at Witherley, a village close to the town 

 of Atherstone, and built there the kennels and stables 

 which have served the hunt till the present day. 

 Up to that time the Atherstone country as we now 

 know it had been hunted with the Sudbury country 

 by Lord Vernon, who kept the hounds alternately 

 at Gopsall and Sudbury. He is said to have hunted 

 in excellent style. His hunt uniform was orange, 

 and there was great rivalry between Lord Vernon's 

 men and the Quornites when the latter came, as 

 they often did, into the Leicestershire country of 

 the former. But until Mr. Osbaldeston came there 

 was no Atherstone country, except in the sense that 

 every part of the existing hunt of that name was 

 hunted by some pack of hounds or other. It was 

 reserved for the Squire and his mother to give 

 the social eminence and the sense of esprit de 

 corps, which counts for so much in the well-being of 

 a hunt. For while Osbaldeston hunted the country, 

 his mother, who seems to have been a person of 

 magnificent tastes, entertained the wives and daughters 

 of the hunt members. 



Then the new Master founded one of those pleasant 

 Hunt Clubs which were so important a feature of 

 the old fox-hunting days. The members dined to- 

 gether at certain intervals and subscribed for the 

 benefit of the hunt. The Warwickshire Hunt Club 

 at Stratford-on-Avon, the Pytchley, of which men- 

 tion has already been made, and the Atherstone at 

 Witherley are notable instances of these Clubs. 

 Membership was sought as a social distinction as 

 well as for the conviviality and good fellowship which 



