Western Morning News (Saturday)

Fascinatin­g characters who made historic

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A new book on the Devon and Somerset Staghounds by Jeremy Whitehorn charts the history of the pack up to the present day. Here he details the massive task

The fear of omissions inevitably bedevil those who write small books on immense subjects.

Although vastly more has been written about the Devon & Somerset Staghounds than any other hunting establishm­ent under the sun, early historians restricted themselves on the whole to accounts of the deer, the country, the tufters, the harbouring procedure, the sporting runs and suchlike.

Little is generally said about the remarkable people who bred the hounds, managed the deer with such foresight and care, ran the country, raised the roofs of the Exmoor taprooms and broke their backs keeping alive this, the oldest and most misunderst­ood of all our hound sports.

So when asked by that grand old patriarch of the cause, Tom Yandle, to add to the annals of the Devon & Somerset Staghounds, it was decided that this should be the first book to attempt an unbroken narrative history of the hunt from the early times right up to 2018, with particular focus on the wonderful characters who made it all happen.

Today Exmoor’s red deer roam wild in their familiar old haunts, secure as a herd and healthier than any in the land. But it would be wrong to think that this is a naturally-occurring miracle of ecological endurance or happy quirk of providence.

The early days of staghuntin­g on Exmoor – by a largely absentee gentry – are blotted out to some extent by the mists of time, but by the beginning of the 19th century definite shapes began to form in the murk.

By the 1820s/30s staghuntin­g was in the doldrums; exactly the same forces that had made life all but impossible for the red deer in the rest of the country were exerting themselves on Exmoor and their numbers were crumbling inexorably to nil. When Mr Fenwick Bisset got together a pack of hounds in 1855 and revived the Devon and Somerset Staghounds, the genetic make-up of Exmoor’s red deer had already been somewhat widened through efforts to keep the herd going.

By the mid 19th century, poaching and “deer stealing” had reduced numbers on Exmoor to around 50 creatures.

Gradually the farmers were brought properly into the sport, the red coats (for all but hunt officials) were put away and the deer numbers climbed slowly. This revival of the deer was due almost entirely to the efforts of Mr Fenwick Bisset, the Master from 1855-1881, for whom a votive candle still burns away quietly in the D&S psyche and about whom a remarkable pile of words has been heaped up.

The deer during his era found themselves preserved slavishly and hunted selectivel­y; poachers became pariahs and Exmoor people, most of whom were staghunter­s by old instinct, made themselves interested in the ways of the deer, their habitat and security.

Thus through sporting interests and fraternal bonds, the deer’s damaging ways were borne with tolerance by those with most to lose – the farmers and landowners – who now held the whole thing in the palms of their hands.

In due course, wars came and went, bringing atrophy to sport and hardship to man, horse, hound and deer. The inter-war years, when Colonel Wiggin managed the country and Ernest Bawden carried the horn, were as memorable as any in the long annals of the chase.

The hunting world fell at Ernest’s feet, and it was during these wonderful years that he filled the kennels for the first time with an entirely homebred sort, and the wooded combes with their cry. He lived for his hounds, never neglecting, deceiving or scolding them and they in turn went to the moon and back for him.

Tommy Hancock, scion of those sporting brewers of Wiveliscom­be, took over briefly from Col Wiggin when the latter was finally defeated by infirmity in 1935.

Then came the war, Hitler’s war, with all its heartbreak and short measures; as with so many other hunting establishm­ents, women took over the reins during the Second World War.

Biddy Abbot, one of the most admired of all DSSH Masters, carried the hunt through the lean years of conflict, with the help of Flo Hancock, Tommy’s Hancock’s wife.

“Had it not been for Miss Abbot,” declared the chairman, Lord Fortescue, “the hunt would not have survived the war.”

The first opening meet of peace, like that of 1919, was an immense conclave, but the mood was solemn.

Many old friends were gone from the field, along with the familiar music of their laughter. The coming of peace in 1945 did not herald the longed-for return of the contented days of the late 1930s with its wonderful sport and brightly coloured memories.

Although everyone recognised that the world was a different place, few staghunter­s imagined that they would need to rise to the occasion of peace as they had to war. In the early post-war days hounds were scarce, fetching an arm and a leg at the Rugby hound auctions; fuel, food and feed stuffs remained under ration and vast areas of wartime tillage were put back to pasture, which cried out for gentle treatment.

At the bottom of it all, Attlee’s government, which in 1946 unseated Churchill in an unexpected political earthquake, ensured anyone with any money to their name gave it all to Attlee’s radical cause.

It was not until 1949, largely through the generosity of one friendly high-roller, that the DSSH at last returned to hunting three days a week. But the hunt, even then, was still not

Few staghunter­s imagined that they would need to rise to the occasion of peace as they had to war

 ?? PICTURES: JEREMY WHITEHORN ?? Ernest Bawden with the hounds at the Crown Hotel, Exford c1930. Right: Ernest Bawden leading the Devon and Somerset Staghounds off from Larkbarrow Farm, c1932
PICTURES: JEREMY WHITEHORN Ernest Bawden with the hounds at the Crown Hotel, Exford c1930. Right: Ernest Bawden leading the Devon and Somerset Staghounds off from Larkbarrow Farm, c1932
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