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    The Lunesdale & Oxenholme Staghounds: A History
    The Lunesdale & Oxenholme Staghounds: A History
    The Lunesdale & Oxenholme Staghounds: A History
    Ebook92 pages1 hour

    The Lunesdale & Oxenholme Staghounds: A History

    By Ron Black

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    About this ebook

    As you pass Junction 35 on the northbound M6 the road slowly begins its climb, which will ultimately end at Shap summit. To the west, the hills of Lakeland fill the horizon. To the east, Ingleborough, once thought to be the highest peak in England, peeps over the trees and motorway barriers. To hunting folk the Lakeland fells are home to the fell packs. Small hunts with a long history run on a shoestring by hard men. However the country that you’re currently traversing was for around 80 years hunted by a wealthy group completely different to their brothers in the North West, who began by hunting hare, and when hare became scarce moved on to deer. This book is an attempt, using material written at the time, to tell the story of the Lunesdale and Oxenholme Staghounds.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGone2Ground Books
    Release dateJul 14, 2011
    ISBN9781465915931
    The Lunesdale & Oxenholme Staghounds: A History
    Author

    Ron Black

    Gone2Ground Books was created by Ron Black and Wendy Fraser in 2011 after they had successfully published a few books based on Ron's personal experiences as a boy brought up in Ambleside, in the Lakeland District of Cumbria (UK). Ron's books describing the social life and history of the region were produced from the pages of his popular website, Lakeland Hunting Memories, created by Wendy in 2008. Ron writes: "Recently I was told that 95% of Lakeland was unexplored in an archaeological sense. With the abolition of Fox Hunting in 2005 there was a slight chance that places and structures associated with fox hunting would in the fullness of time join them, lost in time and memory. "It was with this in mind that I began to compile material for my website. It is not my intention for it to glorify or be used as propaganda for or against hunting, but simply to record associations with a 'sport' traditional to Lakeland for over 300 years. "I am a native Lakelander with roots going back to 1700, the 4th generation to follow hounds, with ancestors who stood on the cold tops at dawn, moved the heavy Lakeland stone to free trapped terriers and also 'carried the horn' on occasions. I hope this site is of interest to you. Hunting will not come back in the foreseeable future, perhaps not at all, but for three hundred years hunting and the church were the central thread to many communities. This is a part of the story."

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      Book preview

      The Lunesdale & Oxenholme Staghounds - Ron Black

      A History of the Lunesdale & Oxenholme Staghounds

      by

      Ron Black

      Published by Windsor-Spice Books at Smashwords

      Copyright 2011 Ron Black

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      * * * * * * *

      Foreword

      Since hunting with hounds was banned, by act of Parliament in 2004, this country lost one of its traditional rural pastimes, which had been one of the mainstays of the countryside economy, provided not only employment but also a great deal of pleasure to many people. Hunting with hounds had taken place all over the country for centuries and for many was a way of life. As well as providing food, as in the case of deer, it also, contrary to popular belief, was an effective way of controlling vermin like foxes.

      It is therefore very gratifying to see that Ron Black has compiled this history of the Lunesdale & Oxenholme Hounds to give a glimpse of a forgotten era, which has gone forever. If history teaches us anything it tells us who we are and how we got here. By recording events like this he is leaving a legacy for future generations to study, begin to understand and hopefully learn from. Who knows what the future may bring? It is only by understanding where we came from that we can we go forward with confidence.

      Trevor Hughes

      Kendal July 2011

      * * * * * * *

      Introduction

      For Lion and Mabel, who deserved better.

      As you pass Junction 35 on the northbound M6 the road slowly begins its climb, which will ultimately end at Shap summit. To the west, the hills of Lakeland fill the horizon. To the east, Ingleborough, once thought to be the highest peak in England, peeps over the trees and motorway barriers. To hunting folk the Lakeland fells are home to the fell packs. Small hunts with a long history run on a shoestring by hard men. However the country that you’re currently traversing was for around 80 years hunted by a wealthy group completely different to their brothers in the North West, who began, by hunting hare, and when hare became scarce moved on to deer both harboured and carted.

      The hunt was an exclusive group, comprising of the notable families of the old county of Westmorland and, unlike the hard men to the north, they rode; expensive horses and servants were the norm in a time of national austerity.

      With the outbreak of World War Two the hunt folded, although links remain in the Vale of Lune Harriers and the Oxenholme Pony Club. Today, the Lunesdale and Oxenholme Staghounds are consigned to history and for the most part forgotten. The deer they chased, including Lion and Mabel, have gone to that great rutting ground in the sky. The horses, among them White Wine and Lionel, push up the grass instead of grazing it, and the sound of the horn and halloa has been replaced by the rumble of traffic and the high-speed train.

      This book is an attempt, using material written at the time, to tell the story of the Lunesdale and Oxenholme Staghounds. They deserve it. All hunting reports have been taken from sources written at the time, and photographs reproduced by kind permission of Trevor Hughes.

      Ron Black

      July 2011

      J. R. Heaton on White Wine, 1921

      * * * * * * *

      Table of Contents

      Foreword

      Introduction

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Acknowledgements

      About the Author

      * * * * * * *

      Chapter 1

      The History of The Oxenholme Staghounds

      The Oxenholme Hunt

      By C. J. C., 1902

      The material below is copied from the original document; all dates and spellings are as they appear.

      I have been asked to write an account of the Oxenholme Hunt, which has now flourished for just about fifty years, and as the jubilee of the hunt is now approaching, it may not be amiss to record some outline of its history.

      There has been hunting of one sort or another all through the last century, and probably for longer, in the valley of the Kent. A pack existed, known as the Kendal Hounds, but for what quarry they were kept is now buried in obscurity. It is recorded that there was a yearly meet on Helme, when the mayor of the town was elected, and doubtless a long dinner after the hunt, but all accurate records seem to have disappeared.

      Harry Rauthmell had a pack of hounds at Hutton Bridge End from 1820 till well into the forties. They would hunt anything they could find but fox was preferred. A run is recorded when they found in the Rigmaden covers and ran to Hutton Roof Crag, the fox getting to ground with the hounds in view. Harry Rauthmell was a very handsome old fellow, as I remember him, and on Saturday, in Kendal, was always dressed in a tall silk hat and a green field-dress coat with brass buttons.

      Before them again were the Underbarrow hounds, who stuck to the fox, and the names of some of their followers still remain: Richard Wilson was master, and Brian Bell, Robert Dacre, and John Dickinson were often out with him.

      I remember once meeting a scratch pack going home from hunting, and asking the huntsman what they hunted, he replied, Hunt! They can hunt anything, from an elephant to a bumble-bee, and catch it too. Such were probably the hounds of this neighbourhood in the first half of the century.

      In 1849 Walter Strickland of Sizergh, started a pack of Harriers along with William Henry Wakefield, and for several seasons they hunted the country round Kendal, but in 1855 they separated and, though the Squire kept things going for another season, the pack was broken up the following Spring. I can just remember seeing these hounds hunting near Burneside.

      In the year 1856, the country then

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