FOR the second time this season, and only the third time in 20 years, the hunt is meeting here on foot owing to a heavy frost. Perhaps it's just as well, as I didn't check the tide table when I agreed to the meet and there would not be space for horses and hounds on the beach. We gather in the yard instead, prudently keeping the chickens shut up until hounds have moved off.
As I weave through the pack holding sausages aloft, I reflect that, if there are any class warriors from Edinburgh hoping for photographs of posh people in hunting kit (there aren't as far as I can tell, but you can never be sure), they will be disappointed to find what looks like a shepherds' convention, with rustic folk on quad bikes in woolly hats and assorted agricultural garments of interesting provenance. Only the sight of gorgeous blond manes released from their customary hairnets gives a clue that this is no ordinary group.
The antis' narrative might also be spoilt if they meet our masters: George, our huntsman, a former jockey who shears sheep to help make ends meet when not devotedly looking after his hounds; Bud the Builder, under whose RSJ we eat breakfast; softly-spoken Gary the Joiner; and Corrina, who somehow finds the time to escape from juggling motherhood with a frenetic bed-and-breakfast operation to field master on weekdays.
This story is from the February 15, 2023 edition of Country Life UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the February 15, 2023 edition of Country Life UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Give it some stick
Galloping through the imagination, competitive hobby-horsing is a gymnastic sport on the rise in Britain, discovers Sybilla Hart
Paper escapes
Steven King selects his best travel books of 2024
For love, not money
This year may have marked the end of brag-art’, bought merely to show off one’s wealth. It’s time for a return to looking for connoisseurship, beauty and taste
Mary I: more bruised than bloody
Cast as a sanguinary tyrant, our first Queen Regnant may not deserve her brutal reputation, believes Geoffrey Munn
A love supreme
Art brought together 19th-century Norwich couple Joseph and Emily Stannard, who shared a passion for painting, but their destiny would be dramatically different
Private views
One of the best ways-often the only way-to visit the finest privately owned gardens in the country is by joining an exclusive tour. Non Morris does exactly that
Shhhhhh...
THERE is great delight to be had poring over the front pages of COUNTRY LIFE each week, dreaming of what life would be like in a Scottish castle (so reasonably priced, but do bear in mind the midges) or a townhouse in London’s Eaton Square (worth a king’s ransom, but, oh dear, the traffic) or perhaps that cottage in the Cotswolds (if you don’t mind standing next to Hollywood A-listers in the queue at Daylesford). The estate agent’s particulars will give you details of acreage, proximity to schools and railway stations, but never—no, never—an indication of noise levels.
Mission impossible
Rubble and ruin were all that remained of the early-19th-century Villa Frere and its gardens, planted by the English diplomat John Hookham Frere, until a group of dedicated volunteers came to its rescue. Josephine Tyndale-Biscoe tells the story
When a perfect storm hits
Weather, wars, elections and financial uncertainty all conspired against high-end house sales this year, but there were still some spectacular deals
Give the dog a bone
Man's best friend still needs to eat like its Lupus forebears, believes Jonathan Self, when it's not guarding food, greeting us or destroying our upholstery, of course
