The Fitzwilliam Foxhounds at Milton Hall

Interviews about the Fitzwilliam pack and the future of fox hunting.

Huntsmen riding on horses and the pack of hounds pass from the road through the gates of Milton Hall and into the park. The horse riders and dogs cross the grass against a vista of the long range of buildings at Milton Hall. A huntsman enters a doorway and the hounds squeeze after him into the passage to the enclosed areas where the dogs drink water and are tended. Two men hold a dog preparing to treat it with an aerosol spray. Barking dogs are gathered around two men, both holding sticks, who stand in conversation on the grass. Anglia Television interviewer Chris Young talks first with Earl Fitzwilliam who says that the hounds are part of the family, and he will keep them as long as he can. He explains that the size of the pack has been reduced in recent years, but that there is still demand to hunt with the Fitzwilliam Hounds and other packs in England. Chris Young asks him about the possibility of a ban on fox hunting. He is confident that hunting will continue, and cites a recent letter in ‘The Times’ suggesting ‘If I were a fox I’d vote Tory’, referring to the alternatives of traps, poison and gas to kill the hunted animals. Chris Young then questions Tom Teanby who tends the hounds. Asked how quick is the kill, Tom replies that it is instant. Chris Young mentions newspaper photographs of animals torn apart by hounds, and Tom says he’s seen pictures of UFOs but they have not been proved. He says that foxhunting is a sport that anyone can take part in, and he does not think there will be a ban. The final sequence shows huntsmen on horseback cantering with the hounds with the sound of the hunting horn.

Featured Buildings

Milton Hall, Peterborough

Keywords

Sport; Hunting; Fox Hunting; Horses; Dogs; Animal Welfare; Country Sports; Hunting Horn

Background Information

Fox hunting with hounds originated in England in the sixteenth century in a form very similar to that practised until February 2005, when a law banning the activity in England and Wales came into force. The tenth Earl Fitzwilliam was William Thomas George Wentworth-Fitzwilliam (28 May 1904 – 21 September 1979). Milton Hall was his family home. Tom Teanby worked and hunted with the Fitzwilliam (Milton) Hunt.