A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE 



giving up his pack and wished to take office as 

 master of foxhounds. The upshot of negotia- 

 tions with the county gentry was that he took 

 the Oakley country and settled at Harrold Hall, 

 where he collected a pack, and remained master 

 of it from 1829 to 1834. He took considerable 

 pains to get a good lot of hounds together. He 

 says : — ^ 



My hounds that I used for stag were all clean-bred 

 foxhounds of the best blood, and of the very best size 

 for work, neither too large nor too small, and every 

 hound as much attached to me as a parlour dog. The 

 seventeen couples of them which I selected, I well 

 knew had no fault, and would run a fox, at my bid- 

 ding, as steady from hare and fallow deer as any 

 foxhounds in the world, if I could put them on the 

 fox's line. This was but a small foundation on which 

 to build a pack for four days a week in a tremen- 

 dously heavy woodland, resolved as I was to raise it to 

 sixty or seventy couples ; and I determined to seek 

 aid from masters of hounds with whom I was per- 

 sonally acquainted. 



Mr. Berkeley's next care was to prepare the 

 new kennels, a barn being converted into a 

 feeding-house, cowsheds into lodging-houses, and 

 a portion of the farmyard into a yard for hounds. 

 A large shed was made into an over-night kennel 

 for the hunting hounds ; and a lesser one a house 

 for the bitches. The hounds, which had been 

 collected in the Cranford kennels, were sent for, 

 and were received with delight by the farmers 

 and yeomen, many of whom came to meet the 

 new master at Harrold, ' the bells in the steeple 

 setting up a merry peal.* His supporters accom- 

 panied Mr. Berkeley to the kennel, ' and Harrold, 

 for the first time in its existence, contained a 

 pack of hounds.' 



After much hard work, in spite of a number of 

 difficulties arising out of the circumstances under 

 which he had undertaken his task, Mr. Berkeley 

 showed good sport, fourteen brace of masks 

 adorning the kennel doors at the close of his first 

 season. Throughout his second season foxes 

 came much oftener to hand, and the season 

 proved a very good one for sport. On the third 

 season, he says, * the very fact of my pack having 

 too much youth among them at the first, now 

 gave me a body of hounds of two years' experi- 

 ence, so that mine then began to be a most 

 powerful kennel.' He now had two good ser- 

 vants, George Carter and Tom Skinner. The 

 former afterwards became famous as a huntsman. 

 Among the curiosities of Mr. Berkeley's experi- 

 ence with the Oakley is that of the frequent loss 

 of a fox at Turvey Abbey. Finally, * when, as 

 usual, the hounds were knocking at the door,' a 

 message was sent in asking permission to look 

 into the yard. While the message was being 

 delivered, Mr. Berkeley climbed the garden 

 wall, and was trying to see as much as he 



' Reminiscences of a Huntsman (1854). 



could, when leave to search the premises was 

 refused : — 



Harry Boulton was with me, so as we left the place 

 ... I told him to recollect my words, and if my 

 successor ever ran a fox and lost him at Turvey Abbey, 

 if Mr. Higgins, or whoever might succeed Mr. 

 Higgins, would permit it, by all means to search the 

 outhouses, and particularly the ivy on the top of 

 Mr. Higgins's bedroom, for I was certain that the 

 foxes . . . absolutely slept over their heads . . . 

 People laughed at this idea, and talked of hidden 

 drains, or the fox's having gone on ; but I had hounds 

 on whom I could depend, and I knew better. 



Mr. Dansey, who succeeded Mr. Berkeley as 

 master in 1834, one day lost a fox at Turvey 

 Abbey. Boulton suggested that he should appear 

 to go away with the hounds, and then, having 

 obtained permission to look over the premises, 

 Mr. Dansey went into the back-yard, and found 

 the marks of nails on the outhouses. He got a 

 ladder, found the place where the animals 

 ascended to the roof: — 



He said the path was as evident as a hare's run in a 

 preserve. Up he got, crept along a well-used gutter, 

 and peeped quietly over a raised roof into the next 

 gutter. . . . Close to his eyes, and curled up in a 

 well-used kennel in the ivy and fast asleep, lay a fox, 

 while another fox, the one that had led the hounds 

 there, stretched himself at his ease, slightly panting, 

 in a gutter below, several other kennels in the ivy 

 also appearing. Boulton was so delighted that, with 

 a flick of his whip and a halloa, he sent the foxes from 

 their triumphant retreat . . . unceremoniously to the 

 ground. 



In 1832 Mr. Berkeley was elected M.P. for 

 West Gloucestershire, and for two years com- 

 bined his duties to his constituents with his 

 duties to the hunt, often posting from town in 

 the early hours after a late division in order to 

 hunt. But eventually he found that it was 

 necessary either to resign his seat or to give up 

 the hounds, and reluctantly determined to take 

 the latter course. The pack was bought by 

 Mr. Wilkins for the Pytchley kennel. 



As already stated, Mr. Berkeley was succeeded 

 by Mr. Dansey. That gentleman held office for 

 only two seasons, and was succeeded by the 

 Duke of Bedford, who now owned the Oakley 

 pack. The kennels at this period were at Oak- 

 ley. That the hunt was then flourishing is 

 evident from the descriptions given by Lord 

 Charles Russell of runs he enjoyed with these 

 hounds in December 1836 and in December 

 1 841. He mentions the fact that when George 

 Beers left the Oakley, * the Hunt presented 

 Beers with a cup on which were inscribed the 

 dates of the best six runs he had ever achieved.' 

 Two of these are among the runs which Lord 

 Charles describes. In 1841 Mr. Hollingworth 

 Magniac accepted the mastership, which he held 

 until 1847, when Major Hogg succeeded him, 

 remaining until 1850. He was followed by 



