Belvoir Hunt factfile

• The hunt is more than 300 years old and is based at Belvoir Castle – home to the Duke of Rutland.

• It meets Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

• The hunt has around 150 subscribers.

• The kennels at Woolsthorpe-by-Belvoir house around 120 hounds.

• Royalty to have ridden with the Belvoir Hunt includes Viscount Linley and Prince Charles.

At the turn of the century, hunting was still going strong and maintained the high-profile links between Melton Mowbray and the upper classes.

The Duke of Windsor, then Edward Prince of Wales, fell in love with Melton in 1921 and lived at Craven Lodge with stables in Sherrard Street.

At the height of the Jazz Age from 1924 to 1929, he spent

much of his spare time here in what he called his “second home” hunting, entertaining and attending various social events in town.

By the middle of the 1929 season the Duke of York, later King George VI, took apartments at Craven Lodge, and the Duke of Gloucester was also a fan of Melton. Hunting remained part and parcel of Melton life.

Each of the area’s hunts, the

Quorn, Belvoir, Cottesmore and Fernie, took it in turns to keep to the tradition of the New Year’s Day hunt until the Fifties.

The Melton Times faithfully recorded each of the meetings in its capacity as the official hunt paper.

In 1983 the custom was revived when thousands turned out to watch the Belvoir Hunt’s New Year’s Day meet.