200 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 



CHAPTEK XI 



KENNELS AND STABLES 



' There can be no more important kind of information than the exact know- 

 ledge of a man's own country ; and for this, as well as for more general reasons 

 of pleasure and advantage, hunting with dogs and other kinds of sports should 

 be pursued by the young.' — Plato, Laws (Jowett), vol. v. p. 334. 



Queen Anne established the kennels on their present site 

 at Ascot. She inherited her father's love of hunting, who, 

 as Duke of York, was if anything over-fond of it. Pepys 

 more than once complains of the routine Admiralty business 

 falling into arrears owing to the Lord High Admiral being 

 out hunting. Swift speaks of her hunting in burning July 

 weather in a calash — a sort of*gig — for she did not ride much 

 latterly, and in order to get about and see the hunt she was 

 always having new rides cut and bogs drained. We horsemen 

 owe much of the pleasure of the October forest hunting about 

 Swinley and Bagshot to Queen Anne. 



Kennel lameness was the great scourge of the Ascot 

 kennel in the earlier years of this century. Sharpe and the 

 whips, described rather mildly as ' kind and civil ' men by a 

 writer in the ' Sporting Magazine ' of 1814, appear to have 

 acknowledged themselves powerless to deal with it.' 



George IV. thought otherwise. Brighton, in his opinion, 

 was the panacea for all things hurtful, and for a year or two 

 he sent Sharpe there with the hounds for sea-bathing, their 



' The central figure in the plate opposite is G. Shar^je, huntsman ; the 

 others are C. Davis, J. Mandeville, and J. Freeman. 



