The Sporting Dictionary and Rural Repository, Volume 2 (of 2): Of General Information upon Every Subject Appertaining to the Sports of the FieldTaplin, William
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The Sporting Dictionary and Rural Repository, Volume 2 (of 2): Of General Information upon Every Subject Appertaining to the Sports of the Field
Taplin, William
Hunting -- Dictionaries; Sports -- Dictionaries
KENNEL—is the place where hounds are kept; upon the judicious
construction of which, their health, safety, and preservation, are known
greatly to depend. Those who take to, or become possessed of, KENNELS
ready built, frequently continue them in the form they fall into their
hands; but such as encounter the expence of new erections, cannot do
better than take a previous survey of the most approved plans; amongst
which the DUKE of BEDFORD'S, at Wooburn Abby; the DUKE of RICHMOND'S, at
Goodwood, in Sussex; and SIR WILLIAM ROWLEY'S, at Tendring Hall,
Suffolk, are supposed, for extent and convenience, to take the lead of
most others in the kingdom. TASTE and FASHION may go a great way in the
external glare of such establishments; but HEALTH and CONVENIENCE should
always prove the most predominant considerations. It is universally
admitted, by all who have a practical knowledge of this subject, that in
large and regularly-hunted packs, two kennels are indispensibly
necessary to the success and well-doing of the whole. When there is but
one, it can in the winter season be but seldom cleaned; and even then
the hounds are in a comfortless state, from the dampness of the
situation so long as it remains. Cleanliness is so essentially necessary
in every APARTMENT and DEPARTMENT of a kennel, that no continuance of
health in the hounds, or excellence in the field, can be expected
without it. They are individually innately clean; and will never, if
they can avoid it, _dung_ near where they _lie_. Air, fresh straw, and
ample room for the occasional expansion of their weary limbs, are
requisite for the invigoration of the frame, and the preservation of
health. Hounds confined in a body, are more liable to disease, than the
same animal single, and in a state of unrestrained liberty; hence the
necessity for counteraction, by every means the most prudent precaution
can adopt. Hounds thus subject to, and constantly attacked with disease,
and even madness, under the best and most judicious management, must be
evidently much more so if surrounded with _filth_ and _nastiness_.
That some idea may be formed of the grandeur of the buildings, and the
liberal scale, of the most celebrated hunting establishments, it is only
necessary to introduce a few explanatory remarks upon the kennels of
eminence already mentioned. The superb edifice of the Duke of Richmond
is said (and probably with great truth) to have cost 10,000_l._ in its
erection; to which his Grace contributed no small proportion of personal
assistance. He is reported to have been his own architect and builder;
to have dug his own flints, burnt his own lime, made his own bricks, and
framed the woodwork in his own shops. The DOG KENNEL, abstracted from
all other buildings, stands alone, in such part of the park as to form a
grand and striking object from the principal rooms of the mansion; the
materials are flints, finished at all the angles by a light grey brick,
like the Lymington white-stock.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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