People were hunter-gatherers tens
of millennia before we settled to farming. The ability to successfully hunt was
one of the most vital factors for a community's survival, and this deep-rooted
affinity is has remained strong in our collective consciousness.
Riding with dogs has been a key
feature of life – particularly for the higher classes – since recorded history
began. Deer were a popular source of meat; hares and gamebirds also provided
good meals; wolves, bears and wild boar could terrorise a village. The age-old
scene of mounted hunters gathering with their dogs and weapons to ride after
food or foe was an awe-inspiring one, a key aspect of popular culture and
legend, and one which could make the difference between survival and death for
a community.
This aspect of hunting declined
after the Middle Ages. The bears and wild boar were near extinct. The vast
forests and heaths – carefully nurtured by the Normans for their deer – were dwindling. There was now little scope
for a sporting chase of deer across country, and the established deer parks were
gradually broken up, especially during the Civil War period of the 1640s. Another beast of the chase was needed.
Foxes had been trapped as vermin
for centuries, but from the 1660s, the fox chase began to grow in popularity.
Wealthy gentlemen kept packs of hounds for this purpose, and carefully bred
them for the stamina and persistence for which the foxhound is known today. A
chase of ten or twenty miles was not unknown.
During the 18th century,
district Hunts were established, popular with all those who had or aspired to
have gentle blood. A sporting number of foxes was needed, so landowners began
to set aside areas for them to lie up – known as covers or coverts.
Odd corners of land overgrown with scrub today were often once intended for
this purpose.
The fox hunts soon became an
institutionalised feature of rural life. They remained so until hunting was
made illegal in 2007.
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