MR. MEYNELL 4 3 



MR. MEYNELL 



i753- 1800 



HOWEVER good a sportsman Mr. Boothby may 

 have been, he was, at any rate in popular esti- 

 mation, distanced by the glories of his successor, Mr. 

 Hugo Meynell. Though said to have been descended 

 from a family of long standing in Leicestershire and 

 Derbyshire, Mr. Meynell at the time he took the 

 Quorn country in 1753 owned not an acre of land 

 in the county, though he very soon left Langton Hall 

 and bought from Laurence, Earl Ferrers, Ouorndon 

 Hall, whither he removed the hounds (previously kept 

 at Bowden Inn), and Ouorndon Hall has since that 

 time been the residence of several masters of the Quorn. 

 Temporary kennels appear to have been erected at 

 first, but those now in use were built certainly not later 

 than 1758. Being born in June 1735 (this is doubtful, 

 see post, p. 66), Mr. Meynell could have been but 

 eighteen years of age when he first undertook the 

 arduous task of hunting the wide-stretching Quorn 

 country ; and one of his first acts after becoming 

 M.F.H. was to make a cock-fighting match against 

 Sir Charles Sedley, to fight twice a year, for five years, 

 at Ashbourne and Nottingham alternately. The stakes 

 were ten guineas a battle, and 500 guineas the odd 

 battle. Sir Charles Sedley was to be assisted by all 

 Mr. Neal's cocks, and Mr. Meynell was to have as 

 many of Sir Lynch Cotton's birds as he required. 



Mr. Meynell was no Squire Western. He was quite 



