The Lamerton Hunt are in a pretty sorry state! We turned up to their meet at Bratton Clovelly on 21st November to find a field of only eight riders and barely any hunt support. Having sabbed them in this area twice before, we had a pretty good idea where they might go, so we managed to stay a step ahead of them all day.
As predicted, huntsman David Lewis started off in the valley west of Swaddledown, on land owned by George Moyse, one of the hunt masters. They spent the first few hours going up and down the valley with foot sabs watching from several vantage points, ready to intervene if hounds got onto anything. This area is home to both red deer and roe deer and hounds spent much of the morning running riot in the woods or terrorising sheep in neighbouring fields. At one point Lewis was heard blowing ‘gone away’, the signal that a fox had broken cover, and immediately terrierman and red coats focused their attention on distracting sabs and trying to usher them off the land. The hounds never got onto the scent and Lewis struggled for ages to gather them.
Eventually they headed off into the valley north of Blagrove Farm, where he managed to lose most of the pack again. The frustration and embarrassment were beginning to show on the faces of the red coats and terriermen. However, they were a lot more subdued than last season. On the one occasion that George Moyse raised his voice at foot sabs he was given a stern look by a member of the hunt committee and his expression dropped! Perhaps they’ve been told to keep a lid on it this season.
Lewis spent the next few hours mostly on foot in valleys between Blagrove and Germansweek and Southweek and Swaddledown but hounds never got onto anything. Just as we thought they were heading back to the meet, Lewis took the hounds into a valley east of Voulsdon Cross. Sabs followed on foot. Less than 20 minutes later they all came back out of the valley and rode along the road back to Swaddledown where they packed up. All, that is, apart from Tony Hutchinson, a rider who attacked one of our sabs last season and rode off just as the police were arriving at the scene, which appears to have earnt him a Mastership this season! Not so lucky on this occasion: he was being driven back to the meet on the back of a quad, after having taken a bit of a tumble off his horse.
If this day was anything to go by, this is a hunt that’s on its way out. Several Lamerton hunt members appeared in court a few weeks later on charges of illegal hunting. Their violent shenanigans at the end of last season also earnt them the wrong kind of attention and evidently some of the riders and followers have decided the Lamerton are more trouble than they’re worth. Credit to our foot sabs who traipsed through some pretty boggy terrain but managed to stay on the hunt all day. No kills.
