The club commenced Fox-hunting

The club commenced Fox-hunting

The club commenced Fox-hunting

In 1769, the club commenced Fox-hunting. The uniform was ordered to be changed to ‘a red coat, unbound, with small frock sleeve, a green velvet cape, and green waistcoat, and that the sleeve have no buttons; in every other form to be like the old uniform; and the red saddle-cloth to be bound with green instead of blue, the fronts of the saddles to remain the same.’

At the same time there was an alteration in regard to drinking orders ‘That instead of three collar bumpers, only one shall be drunk, except a fox be killed above ground, and then one other collar glass shall be drunk to Fox-hunting. Among the names of the original members in 1762, we recognise many whose descendants have maintained in this generation their ancestral reputation as sportsmen. For instance, Crewe, Mainwaring, Wilbraham, Smith, Barry, Cholmondeley, Stanley, Grosvenor, Townley, Watkin Williams Wynne, Stanford. But, although the Tarporley Hunt Club has been maintained and thriven through the reigns of George III., George IV., William IV., and Victoria, the pack of hounds, destroyed or removed by various accidents, have been more than once renewed. But the Brocklesby pack has been maintained in the family of the present Earl of Yarborough more than 130 years without break or change of blood; and a written pedigree of the pack has been kept for upwards of 100 years; and it is now the oldest pack in the kingdom. The Cottesmore, which was established before the Brocklesby, has been repeatedly dispersed and has long passed out of the hands of the family of the Noels by whom it was first established 200 years ago.