[94] In 1687, the old dog-kennels belonging to Staveley Hall were converted into cottages. See a deed at Hardwick from Conyers Lord Darcy to Thomas Frith, dated 24th September of that year. Country gentlemen in Derbyshire took at this time much pleasure in field sports. In Leonard Wheatcroft’s _Elegy upon the death of all the greatest Gentry in Darley Dale who loved Huntinge and Hawkinge_, written in 1672, he refers to the cry— “Of great mouth’d doggs who did not feare to kill Which was their master’s pleesure word and will,” * * * * * “ffarewell you Huntsmen that did hunt the Hare, ffarewell you hounds that tired both horse and mare, ffarewell you gallant Falkners every one.” In these verses he especially mentions Mr. Sitwell’s son-in-law, William Revell of Ogston; in other pieces, written a few years later, he speaks of fox-hunting and horse-racing. [Illustration: Stag Hunting.] Amongst the relations and friends already mentioned as visiting Renishaw in 1662–6, the names of several occur in the letter-book. Mr. Sitwell’s cousins, William and Roger Allestry (Roger represented Derby in Parliament as his brother had previously done, and the features of both, set out in all the glory of Restoration periwigs, are known from engraved portraits), came at intervals to stay with him; and another kinsman, John Spateman, of Roadnook Hall, in Ashover, formerly a Justice of the Peace under the Commonwealth, was there in June, 1666, on his way to plague-stricken London. Captain Mazine, the “great horseman,” so good natured in supplying Mr. Sitwell with the latest news of the Dutch war, was expected from London in July, 1665. “I suppose,” the latter writes, “I shall have the happiness to kis yo^r hand in the Country shortly, w^{ch} I desire the more y^t you may be out of the Danger of the sickness.” In June of the previous year, the Captain had been staying at Welbeck, and had apparently ridden over more than once to dinner and a game of bowls at Renishaw. Mr. Sitwell meditated calling upon him in return, and in reply to a message confessed that he was behindhand with him, but when occasion offered would endeavour to come over. William Revell, of Ogston, one of the “Lovers of Huntinge and Hawkinge” in Darley Dale, upon whose lives and deaths (he died in 1669) the Ashover poet wrote his “Elegy”: “Then I to Ogston, there to break my fast They all in mourning stood at me aghast, To think my friend and lover was departed; And so I left them, all most heavie hearted: What shall I doe (thought I) to hide my head, Seeing so many Gallants now are dead?”