Edited by Catherine Austen
catherine.austen@futurenet.com
@cfausten123
THE arrival of seven boxes of Hampshire Hunt (HH) archive material from the Hampshire Record Office in Winchester was the start of a fascinating journey, during which it became clear that the history of this illustrious hunt could be taken as a metaphor for the evolution of foxhunting itself across the entire United Kingdom.
The first box contained a beautiful leather-bound minute book dated 1795, although the hunt was actually founded 46 years earlier by Thomas Ridge from Kilmeston Manor. Since those early beginnings, the HH has confronted and overcome every kind of challenge, many of which will resonate with those at the sharp end of hunting today.
Since the 2004 Hunting Act, the status of our revered quarry species has been reduced to common vermin, but it came as a surprise to discover that the perennial challenge of reconciling hunting with shooting has been around since the mid-19th century. When Mr Deacon was appointed master of the HH in 1862, only the Rotherfield estate preserved game, but the new sport of driven
