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The red deer of Exmoor have been hunted since Norman times, when Exmoor was declared a Royal Forest. Collyns stated the earliest record of a pack of Staghounds on Exmoor was 1598. In 1803, the "North Devon Staghounds" became a subscription pack. In 1824/5 30 couples of hounds, the last of the true staghounds, were sold to a baron in Germany. [1] Today, the Devon and Somerset is one of three staghounds packs in the UK, the others being the Quantock Staghounds and the Tiverton Staghounds. All packs hunt within Devon and Somerset. The Chairman as of 2016 is Tom Yandle, who was previously High Sheriff of Somerset in 1999.
The approximate dates of the hunting season are:
"This noble chase being ended, my master, his brother and Mr Brutton with about 20 gentlemen more waited on Sir Thomas Acland at Pixton where each of them drank the health of the stag in a full quart glass of claret placed in the stag's mouth & after drinking several proper healths they went in good order to their respective beds about 2 o'clock and dined with Sir Thomas the next day on a haunch of the noble creature and about 50 dishes of the greatest rarities among which were several black grouse".
He returned briefly as joint-master in August 1784, but died in February 1785, aged 63 [11]
[34] [35] [36] He introduced Spring staghunting.
Exmoor is loosely defined as an area of hilly open moorland in west Somerset and north Devon in South West England. It is named after the River Exe, the source of which is situated in the centre of the area, two miles north-west of Simonsbath. Exmoor is more precisely defined as the area of the former ancient royal hunting forest, also called Exmoor, which was officially surveyed 1815–1818 as 18,810 acres (7,610 ha) in extent. The moor has given its name to a National Park, which includes the Brendon Hills, the East Lyn Valley, the Vale of Porlock and 55 km (34 mi) of the Bristol Channel coast. The total area of the Exmoor National Park is 692.8 km2 (267.5 sq mi), of which 71% is in Somerset and 29% in Devon.
Lady Christian Henrietta Caroline Acland, known most widely as Lady Harriet Acland was a British noblewoman and diarist. She accompanied her husband to British North America and became celebrated for her personal courage. She is commemorated on one of the bronze reliefs on second floor of the Saratoga Monument in the State of New York.
Dulverton is a town and civil parish in west Somerset, England, near the border with Devon. The town had a population of 1,408 at the 2011 Census. The parish includes the hamlets of Battleton and Ashwick which is located approximately 4 miles (6.4 km) north west of Dulverton.
Colonel Sir Frederick Winn Knight was an English Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1841 to 1885.
Colonel John Dyke Acland, of Tetton and Pixton in Somerset, was Tory Member of Parliament for Callington in Cornwall and fought in the American War of Independence in 1776.
Master of the Staghounds was a position in the British Royal Household created in 1738 and abolished in 1782. The office was responsible for the oversight and care of the Royal staghounds.
Holnicote in the parish of Selworthy, West Somerset, England, is a historic estate consisting of 12,420 acres of land, much situated within the Exmoor National Park.
Sir Charles Thomas Dyke Acland, 12th Baronet, DL, JP, of Killerton in Devon and of Holnicote in the parish of Selworthy in Somerset, was a large landowner and a British politician and Barrister-at-Law. He was known to family and friends as "Charlie", but demanded to be known in public as "Sir Thomas", not only because that was the traditional name of the Aclands, there having been a "Sir Thomas Acland" at Killerton for 170 years, but also because following the creation of a second and much newer Acland Baronetcy in 1890, for his uncle Sir Henry Wentworth Acland, 1st Baronet, he wished people to know "which was the real head and owner of Killerton".
Colonel Henry George Herbert, 2nd Earl of Carnarvon DL, FSA, styled The Honourable Henry Herbert from 1780 to 1793 and Lord Porchester from 1793 to 1811, was a British peer, nobleman, and Whig politician.
Simonsbath is a small village high on Exmoor in the English county of Somerset. It is the principal settlement in the Exmoor civil parish, which is the largest and most sparsely populated civil parish on Exmoor, covering nearly 32 square miles (83 km2) but with a population, at the time of the 2001 census, of 203 in 78 households, reducing to 156 at the 2011 census. The River Exe rises from a valley to the north, and the River Barle runs through the village and is crossed by a triple-arched medieval bridge that was extensively repaired after floods in 1952.
Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 7th Baronet of Killerton in Devon and Petherton Park in Somerset, was Member of Parliament for Devon, 1746–1747, for Somerset, 1767–1768, and was High Sheriff of Somerset in 1751. He was a prominent member of the West Country gentry, and a famous staghunter who used as his hunting seats his wife's Exmoor estates of Pixton and Holnicote.
Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 9th Baronet of Killerton in Devon and Holnicote in Somerset, was a prominent landowner and member of the West Country gentry. He was especially noted for his passion for staghunting, in which respect he took after his father. Like his father he was known locally in Devon and Somerset as "Sir Thomas his Honour".
Mordaunt Fenwick Bisset of Bagborough in Somerset, 22nd Scottish feudal baron of Lessendrum in Aberdeen, Scotland, was a British Conservative Party Member of Parliament and a famous west-country Master of Staghounds.
Pixton Park is a country house in the parish of Dulverton, Somerset, England. It is associated with at least three historically significant families, successively by descent: Acland, amongst the largest landowners in the West Country; Herbert, politicians and diplomats; and Waugh, writers. The present grade II* listed Georgian mansion house was built circa 1760 by the Acland family and in 1870 was altered by Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon (1831–1890). Although Pixton Park is situated within the manor of Dulverton, the manorial chapel relating to Pixton is situated not at Dulverton but within the Church of St Nicholas, Brushford, across the River Barle, as the lordship of the manor of Dulverton was held from 1568 by the Sydenham family seated at Combe House, on the opposite side of the River Barle to Dulverton and Pixton.
Simonsbath House is a historic house in Simonsbath on Exmoor in Somerset, England. The Grade II listed building is now the Simonsbath House Hotel, and outdoor activity centre. It lies in the valley of the River Barle and on the Two Moors Way footpath.
Duvale is a historic estate in the parish of Bampton, Devon. It is situated on a narrow flat plain in the steep-sided valley of the River Exe, 1 1/2 miles south west of the town of Bampton and 5 miles north of Tiverton, also on the River Exe further downstream. The name, given by Pole (d.1635) as Deu Vale, is said by him to signify "a valley of water". It was until the nearby construction of the present busy A396 road a place of exceptional seclusion and tranquility.
Tetton is an historic estate in the parish of Kingston St Mary in the English county of Somerset. The present grade II* listed Tetton House dates from 1790 and was enlarged and mainly rebuilt in 1924–6 by Hon. Mervyn Herbert (1882–1929) to the design of the architect Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel.
Tom Yandle of Riphay, Brushford, near Dulverton in Somerset, England, is a farmer and chairman of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds and was High Sheriff of Somerset in 1999 and a committee member of both the National Trust and Exmoor National Park. He played a leading role in challenging both the National Trust's decision to ban stag hunting on the Holnicote Estate and the Labour government's ultimately successful proposal to ban hunting with hounds. The Yandle family was previously resident at nearby Duvale an historic estate in the parish of Bampton, Devon. In 1994 he purchased Northmoor House near Dulverton, and 100 acres of surrounding land, which he later sold.
The descent of the Holnicote estate in Somerset, England, is as follows:
The Staghound, sometimes referred to as the English Staghound, is an extinct breed of scent hound from England. A pack hound, the breed was used to hunt red deer and became extinct in the 19th century when the last pack was sold.