Posted by Robert Dilley on November 06, 2002 at 15:38:04 from 65.39.15.64 user rdilley.
In Reply to: Re: FOX HUNT posted by Ian E-N on November 06, 2002 at 13:32:31:
At Loweswater, according to Housman J. Topographical Description of Cumberland, Westmorland, Lancashire and a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Carlisle (1800)
“As soon as harvest is in, an honest cobbler shifts his garb and becomes huntsman, and every second and third morning collects his dogs, and calls the sportsmen to the field: the cottagers climb the mountain's side, where they can view the chace, and without much exertion, enjoy the pleasure of the hunt: after which they retire with cheerful mind and invigorated constitutions to their peaceful homes, and do not end the day of sport in revelling and riot, like the sportsmen of the plains.”
Proffered in the spirit of historical investigation and by no means in support of the practice.
As someone who grew up in hound trailing and hunting country (the next farm to us was John Peel's birthplace) I can reinforce the comments that hound trailing and fox hunting were quite separate activities, and the hounds were quite different in each case. You would no more use a champion trail hound to hunt with than one of the pink-coated brigade further south would ride a racehorse. (Fox hunting was never done on horseback in the Lake District, and was an activity for everyone, not just the rich).
Not everyone was always so keen on hunting. The manorial court at Braithwaite (near Keswick) in 1690 recorded that
"whereas there hath been great complaint by the neighbourhood of Little Town Skelgill and Hawse End that several within that neighbourhood have been very negligent, when desired, to go to hunt the fox: we put in pain that all the neighbourhood that has any heaf-going sheep lying betwixt Hawse End and so as far as Yew Crag and so on back as far as
Buttermere Hause shall upon notice given particularly send every one a man to hunt."
This makes clear that foxes were seen as a nuisance, and that the people of Braithwaite did not consider going to hunt them as fun.
(All this, and a couple more pages on hunting, is from my PhD thesis, which looks at the role of common lands over time in the area).