On Monday a small team of us visited one of Eggesford Hunt’s favourite areas around Riddlecombe and Ashreigney. The hunt were meeting at Paul John (aka Lord Farquaad) and Katie Craddock’s home on the edge of the village.
Katie is Torrington Farmers huntsman Steve Craddock’s daughter and Paul John needs no introduction, if you’re a regular follower of our page! For those who do need a reminder: https://www.facebook.com/devoncountyhuntsaboteurs/videos/1398598863610510
Paul’s performance on Monday within minutes of the hunt setting off from the meet might just have topped the above, so watch this space for Lord Farquaad episode 2, coming soon! Amidst the predictable homophobic and misogynistic remarks and threats to ride us down with his horse or launch us over a hedge, we were also subjected to some more entertaining verbal diarrhoea, being called “hugging tree cunts” and told to “go eat our fucking carrot cake and rice biscuits”. All jokes aside, Paul’s horse was clearly not happy about being yanked at the reins and ridden at us repeatedly. But then what do you expect from a disgraced ex-jockey! After running out of steam and realising he’d struggle to get off his horse without Katie’s help, Paul eventually left us to it and we didn’t see much of him for the rest of the day.
The first draw of the day was between Colehouse and Coldharbour, where a fox was seen running across a field away from hounds. Hounds doubled-back to the east and marked a different fox to ground at a badger sett near Colehouse. This was the first of many marked badger setts that day, all of which we kept an eye on, including remotely.
From Colehouse the hunt moved south into the valley towards Higher Narracott. Sabs were perfectly positioned to witness a fox go to ground at another sett in the valley, shortly before hounds arrived on that fox’s line. Sabs sprayed to cover the scent line and rated hounds when they arrived, sending them back onto the heel line and causing Jason to gather them and move them on to the west. Our drone spotted another fox running from hounds at the next draw, but fortunately the fox had a decent head start and the warm sunny weather caused hounds to scatter and lose the scent.
Via Lake and Ley the hunt then headed north in direction of Ashreigney to draw land belonging to South Farm. We know this particular piece of land extremely well. While foot sabs were repositioning, we hovered our drone directly over a large badger sett straddling the field/wood boundary and witnessed hounds mark another fox to ground there. Jason moved the hounds on from there but we knew this was one terrierman Richard Elliott would be keen to dig-out if given the chance. Sure enough, about half an hour later we spotted him sneaking back to that sett. While a foot sab made a beeline to the sett to disrupt any attempted digout, our vehicle drove to a viewpoint and started filming from the road. Elliott spotted the vehicle and rather pathetically tried to hide his quadbike behind a hedge. When he turned around and realised he was now being filmed from all directions, he picked up his mate and drove off.
Having moved Elliott and his gimp on from the sett, we went to catch up with Jason, who by now had cast hounds into the woods north of Churchwater Bridge. Hounds ended up scattered over a large distance, running off in many different directions on various bits of scent. When we caught up with Jason on the road, he had just one hound with him. Many had gone north towards Heale Farm, into the woods on both sides of the road where the hunt are banned from entering. Our vehicle followed Jason up the road to Heale Farm as he tried to call hounds back to the road. Eventually he got off his horse and ran into the valley to the north to gather them up on foot. A foot sab followed him in and discovered hounds marking yet another sett in the valley.
Knowing the hunt was banned from this land, Richard Elliot meanwhile managed to convince the landowner it was OUR fault the hounds were scattered all over her land. Quite how he did this, considering the only horn and voice-calls ringing across the valley for the past hour had been Jason’s, is unclear! Unclear also why the landowner would believe a hunt terrierman, whose very presence is evidence of illegal activity.
Everything moved on to the west and hounds were cast into the valley between Bolts and Furze Barton. Two foxes were seen running, their getaway assisted by sabs. Richard Elliot tried to scare one of the foxes back from a badger sett, to prevent the fox from going to ground and force a chase, but this fox got away. At this point Jason gave up and hacked back to the meet, while his minions drove around picking up hounds who were scattered all over the Ashreigney and Riddlecombe area.
It was nice to encounter lots of enraged anti-hunt landowners in the area on Monday. It was nice also to see many healthy-looking foxes escape the hunt, including one who crossed the road in front of us at the end after the hunt had packed up.
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