Bring back the pack

David Tomlinson recalls an era when a number of notable English landowners favoured shooting over a team of Clumber spaniels

- David Tomlinson

WE ALL TAKE PACKS of foxhounds for granted, but packs of spaniels are another matter entirely. Yet the concept of using a pack of spaniels as a beating team is an old one and it was quite widespread, if not common, during the 19th century. Despite delving into my library, I can find little about the Victorian spaniel packs, except the fact that most featured Clumbers, though there were some with Sussex spaniels.

Sussex spaniels were originally bred as beating dogs, though there are few records of estates using teams or packs of these russet-colored dogs. The birthplace of the breed is considered to be Rosehill Park in the heart of East Sussex, where the owner of the park, Mr. Fuller, used his team of spaniels almost daily during the shooting season.

He was said to have “derived more pleasure from killing a few brace of birds over them than from a much bigger bag obtained by any other means”. When Fuller died, his kennel was dispersed by auction. Today, Rosehill Park is known as Brightling Park and it does have a pheasant shoot, but not, as far as I am aware, a pack of Sussex spaniels.

There were certainly rather more teams of Clumber spaniels used on shoots in the 19th century. The best known were those kept by the Duke of Newcastle at Clumber Park, but his near neighbour, the Duke of Portland, kept Clumbers at his seat at Welbeck Abbey, as did Earl Spencer at Althorp Park, Northamptonshire, Earl Manvers at Thoresby Hall, Nottinghamshire, and Lord Middleton at Birdsall House, North Yorkshire. King George V kept a large team at Sandringham.

Keeping order