Not your ordinary fell foot pack!Don’t bother looking this one up in Baily’s! (Not to be confused with the Lunesdale Foxhounds.) The Lunesdale and Oxenholme Staghounds concluded its sporting operations upon the outbreak of World War II. The hunt was an anachronism in the Lakeland fells of northern England, and its history, as related by Ron Black in a just published fifty-eight page booklet, taught me something of carted stag hunting that I found sufficiently fascinating to relate here.
“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,” Ron Black tells us.
By contrast, the Lunesdale and Oxenholme country “was for around eighty years hunted by a wealthy group completely different from their brothers in the North West.”
“The hunt was an exclusive group, comprising of the notable families of the old county of Westmoreland and unlike the hard men to the north they rode; expensive horses and servants were the norm in a time of national austerity.”
At first they hunted the hare, but when hare became scarce in their country, they switched to deer. What follows was written in 1902.
“In November 1894 , we bade farewell to the Oxenholme harriers and livery of green, and the Oxenholme staghounds, with scarlet livery began their career. A change was also made in the hounds; it was found that no horseman could live with the speedy harriers across our intricate and hilly Westmoreland country and the black and tan bloodhound cross was introduced. Opinions may differ as to the value of the bloodhound cross, for the hounds thus bred are sometimes delicate...and they suffer from cold and wet. They hang somewhat on the line, and do not score to cry as freely as foxhounds or harriers, but they hunt with untiring energy and persistence; they have grand voices and, above all, they run slower, so that we now have the chance to see many a good hunt, which with faster hounds would be a stern chase from find to finish.
“Stag hunting is said to be a cruel sport. This is entirely untrue as far as the Oxenholme Hunt is concerned. No doubt a tired deer is a melancholy object, but so is a tired fox or a tired hair....All sport is more or less coupled with pain, but there is certainly less pain to the quarry in stag hunting than in any other line of sport which the heart of man has devised as yet.
“Mabel was the first great deer. She ran for seven seasons with never a scratch, and at last the master felt she had earned her rest, and sent her back to Gobarrow Fell, whence she came. Since when she has bred several hinds , and for ought I know is still wondering when she will again be caught and turned out for a chase.
“Lion was another great deer. In the spring of 1897 he discovered a brilliant line between Dallam Tower Park the Covers at Endmoor, and ran back and forward several times, and never was caught till, on the last day of the season, he jumped into Levens Park where he was left to spend the summer. Since then he has been caught several times and turned out in different parts of the country....wherever he starts from he, more often than not, looks round for Levens Park, and ends his run safe within its hospitable walls.”
And for a flavor of what it was like hunting in this country, a combination of difficult going and grand sailing:
“It is the variety of the country we cross in which lies the charm. What greater pleasure can there be than, after toiling over a range of fell, to see hounds sinking the hill, and to know that a stretch of sound grass and negotiable fences lie before us?”
To purchase a copy of A HIstory of the Lunesdale and Oxenholme Straghounds, email cumbrian-lad@hotmail.co.uk. The price is 5.99 pounds sterling (UK) plus postage.
Posted August 15, 2011
Miss Freda Weston, who hunted with the pack since childhood, was appointed MFH in 1930.
