Every year a large crowd gathers
outside the Swan Inn, Broadway to
watch the traditional Boxing Day meet
of the North Cotswold Hunt. The hunt
kennels are situated in Kennel Lane,
Broadway where the hounds are housed
and looked after by a full-time kennel
man. At present the hunt is run by
a syndicate of four masters, who take
it in turns to oversee the running of
the kennels and lead the hunt, which
meets at various places during the
season. From the end of October until
the following March weather permitting
they hunt on Monday, Wednesday and
Saturday. Saturday is the most popular
day, sometimes with a field of two
hundred. Generally Saturday hunting is
restricted to members, but visitors
are permitted to hunt from time to
time. The opening meet in October is
held in Broadway at the Swan Inn.
Broadway is famous for the honey- coloured stone cottages and fine gabled houses which line the main street. The walls, roofing, paving, window mullions and chimneys are all of locally quarried Cotswold stone. The finer houses are built of carefully cut blocks known as 'ashlar' The cottages are built of smaller stone called 'rubble'. The walls are thick and the roofs steep and gabled. The gables are topped by carved finials. The windows have stone mullions and leaded lights. Some houses have ornamental chimneys, stone tiled roofs and drip moulds above the windows. The Broadway Hotel, at the bottom of the village near the village green, is timber framed with half- stone work. Broadway properties are very much sought after and prices are high.
Fox hunting has been occurring in different guises worldwide for
hundreds of years. Indeed the practise of using dogs with a keen sense
of smell to track prey has been traced back to ancient Egypt and many
Greek and Roman influenced countries.
The decline in the deer population and subsequently the sport of deer
hunting, or stalking as it is also known, occurred as a consequence of
the Inclosure Acts passed between 1750 –1860, particularly the Inclosure
(Consolidation) Act of 1801, which was passed to clarify previous acts
of inclosure. These acts meant that open fields and common land where
many deer chose to breed were fenced off into separate, smaller fields
to cope with the increase in the demand for farm land. The birth of the
Industrial Revolution saw the introduction of new roads, railways and canals which further reduced the amount of rural land in the United Kingdom,
although conversely this improvement in transport links also made
foxhunting more popular and easily accessible for those living in towns
and cities who aspired to the life of the country gentleman
For those hunters who had previously tracked deer, which required large
areas of open land, foxes and hares became the prey of choice in the
seventeenth century, with packs of hounds being trained specifically to
hunt. England’s oldest fox hunt, which is still running today, is the
Bilsdale Hunt in Yorkshire, established by George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham in 1668.
Broadway is famous for the honey- coloured stone cottages and fine gabled houses which line the main street. The walls, roofing, paving, window mullions and chimneys are all of locally quarried Cotswold stone. The finer houses are built of carefully cut blocks known as 'ashlar' The cottages are built of smaller stone called 'rubble'. The walls are thick and the roofs steep and gabled. The gables are topped by carved finials. The windows have stone mullions and leaded lights. Some houses have ornamental chimneys, stone tiled roofs and drip moulds above the windows. The Broadway Hotel, at the bottom of the village near the village green, is timber framed with half- stone work. Broadway properties are very much sought after and prices are high.
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