io THE QUORN HUNT 



MELTON MOWBRAY 



MELTON, a country town which is to all intents 

 and purposes kept alive by fox-hunting, is a very 

 different place from what it once was, in fact in Mr. 

 Meynell's earlier days it had practically no existence. 

 Leicester and Loughborough were the places towards 

 which Mr. Meynell's followers gravitated, and it was at 

 Loughborough that the Ouorndon Club was established, 

 long before the Old Club at Melton was ever dreamed of. 

 Mr. Ralph Lambton, afterwards master of the famous 

 Lambton Hounds (subsequently bought by Lord Suffield), 

 after leaving Cambridge "without a shilling of debt," 

 made the Grand Tour, and in 1787 succeeded his father 

 as member for Durham ; and it was in the same year that 

 he enrolled himself as one of Mr. Meynell's followers, 

 making the Ouorndon Club his headquarters. Those, 

 however, were the days of somewhat boisterous merri- 

 ment, and Mr. Lambton, who was a quiet and somewhat 

 shy man, finding his companions rather too high-spirited 

 for him, cast about for a quieter location and eventually 

 selected "the unfrequented town of Melton," and he is 

 said to have been the first man to take a house there. 

 Nowadays it seems strange that a Leicestershire fox- 

 hunter should have gone to Melton to find solitude ! 

 Mr. Lambton, however, lived in what has been described 

 as a style of great magnificence. He had a fine stud, 

 and was most hospitable. 



It was not long before other famous sportsmen fol- 

 lowed Mr. Ralph Lambton's example. Lords Forester 



