A HISTORY OF KENT 



McKenzie, Major Yorke, Lieutenant ' Mid- 

 shipmite ' Powell, Captain ' Rajah ' Paget, 

 Captain ' Jack ' Hanwell, Major J. Dunlop, 

 Captain H. du Free, R.H.A., Captain H. 

 Ramsden.R.H.A., Captain M. Powell, R.H. A., 

 Major D. Arbuthnot, R.F.A., 1904-5 ; and 

 Lieutenant C. G. Mayall, R.H. A., 1905-6.' 



FOOT HARRIERS AND BEAGLES 



The Badlesmere Foot Harriers were estab- 

 lished in 1903 to hunt the country vacated 

 by the Blean Harriers. The pack, which 

 is a private one and is owned by the master, 

 the Reverend Courtney Morgan- Kirby, con- 

 sists of 13 J couples of pure old southern 

 hounds, all blue-mottled, and from 23 to 27 

 inches.^ 



Mr. Morgan-Kirby, writing of his pack, 

 says : ' The southern hound has two great 

 gifts — wonderful scent and glorious music, 

 the latter like thunder, rising and falling in 

 beautiful cadence ; other\\'ise he is a quarrel- 

 some, obstinate, high-strung brute, always 

 fighting in kennel, and riotous when out until 

 he settles down to a line, when there is no 

 getting him off it.' Mr. Morgan-Kirby 

 founded his pack with the oldest of the pure 

 Sandhurst blood, and has crossed entirely 

 with three northern packs. The Badles- 

 mere country is almost entirely hop-gardens 

 with a little marsh-land, and is not a good 

 scenting country. The average kill for the 

 season is sixteen brace. The pack hunts 

 twice a week, and the kennels are at Badles- 

 mere Rectory near Faversham. At the Rei- 

 gate Hound Show in 1905 Mr. Morgan- 

 Kirby's hounds took first prize for southern 

 hounds. 



The Fordcombe Foot Harriers are a sub- 

 scription pack founded in 1870, and consist 

 of ten couples of 1 8-inch pure harriers. They 

 hunt the country near Tunbridge Wells on 

 the Sussex border, and go also into that 

 county. The kennels are at Fordcombe and 

 the pack meets twice a week. Mr. W. 

 Hollamby, Hickman's Farm, Fordcombe ; 

 and Mr.' W. E. Urquhart, Castle Hotel, 

 Tunbridge Wells, are joint masters. 



The Tonbridge district is hunted by the 

 Hadlow Foot Harriers, whose territory is 

 much the same as that once in possession of 



1 Baily's Hunting Directory, 1907. 



^ This is one of the few packs of pure old southern 

 hounds now remaining, and there are said to be 

 only three others still in existence, namely, the 

 Penistone, the Holmfirth and Honley, and the 

 Stannington — all in the north of England. The 

 Penistone claims to have kept its blood pure since 

 1260. 



the Fox Bush Harriers. The pack, which 

 is supported by subscription, was established 

 in 1903 by drafts from the Fox Bush kennels 

 and from other packs. Meeting days are 

 Wednesdays and Saturdays, and the pack 

 consists of fifteen to twenty couples of 18-inch 

 harriers. The master, who has held office 

 since the pack was founded, is Mr. J. P. S. 

 Hervey of Faulkners, Hadlow, where the 

 kennels are situated. 



OTTER-HUNTING 



Most of the rivers of Kent are well supplied 

 with otters, and those animals are suffered 

 to exist in these waters rather more plenti- 

 fully perhaps than in the majority of the 

 southern counties. But the reason for this 

 forbearing attitude towards the otter, credit- 

 able as it is, is to be found, one fears, simply 

 in the fact that angling is not pursued within 

 the county so vigorously as in other parts of 

 the country, where trout streams are more 

 numerous and rents for the rights of fishing 

 proportionately high. 



Of late years otter-hunting has grown 

 greatly in public favour, especially in the 

 home counties. Kent itself, for instance, 

 was without an established pack of otter- 

 hounds until a few years ago, when the 

 nucleus of the Crowhurst pack was got 

 together by Mr. W. E. F. Cheesman. Mr. 

 Cheesman's first intention was to buy up a 

 few couples of ' marked ' hounds to hunt 

 the streams and ditches around Crowhurst 

 in the adjoining county of Sussex, and he 

 set to work in January 1903 to collect his 

 pack and sound the sporting people of the 

 neighbourhood upon the idea of establishing 

 a recognized pack. The move proved to 

 be a popular one and in a very short time it 

 had the support of nearly every lover of 

 hunting in Kent and Sussex. Negotiations 

 were entered into with Mr. Graham-Clarke, 

 owner of the Culmstock Otter-hounds, from 

 whom Mrs. Walter Cheesman, aunt of the 

 prime mover in the undertaking, purchased 

 8J couples of hounds in February 1903 ; 

 and by the end of that month the new pack 

 was installed in kennels at Crowhurst. Leach, 

 an old huntsman of the Cheriton Otter- 

 hounds, was engaged as huntsman and Mr. 

 H. K. Mantell of Crowhurst was appointed 

 master. From the first the pack has been 

 under the control of a committee, to which 

 the hounds are lent by Mrs. Cheesman. 



The Crowhurst Otter-hounds held their 

 inaugural meet under the walls of the pictur- 

 esque castle of Bodiam in Sussex on 13 April 

 1903, this being the first meet of any recog- 



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