Page:VCH Kent 1.djvu/586

 A HISTORY OF KENT the church. Here, as in the case of human delinquents in former times who fled to sanctuary, they were free from molestation, and no attempt was ever made to molest further any hare which reached the church- yard in safety. But the time came when it was necessary that the church should be repaired and the rector (who, by the by, only paid a visit about once in six months) came to the owner of the island for a sub- scription. The latter was a generous man and quite ready at all times to put his hand in his pocket in a good cause, but he made it a bargain that if he subscribed towards the repair fund, his hares should still be allowed sanctuary beneath the church. To this the pastor refused to agree, and eventually he got his own way much to the chagrin of the owner of the land and to the discomfort of the hares. Although there were no open meetings held in Kent in 1857, the following names of Kentish men appear in the list of ' Public Coursers ' in the first volume of the Coursing Calendar — Mr. Blenkiron of Eltham Park ; Mr. E. Collyer of Southfleet near Gravesend ; Messrs. W. and J. B. Strother of Shooter's Hill ; and Mr. Walter Vipan of The Her- mitage at Erith. The Calendar of 1867 is the first volume to contain any returns of Kentish coursing, and two meetings then came into vogue. These were the Quex Park Club (Isle of Thanet) and the Downs Club (Sandwich). The former meeting under distinguished patronage yielded very good sport, and many stakes of fair value were decided at the several fixtures carried out each season ; in- deed, it appears to have been the most influ- ential club in the county's brief coursing history. The Quex Park gatherings, however, only extended over some ten years, and strangely enough its co-pioneer, the Downs Club, flickered out in the following year, 1878. In 1873 two new ventures were embarked upon, the Isle of Sheppey and the Seven- oaks meetings. It is however hardly correct to refer to the latter as a single meeting, for the Calendar returns details of sport as having taken place there under the several heads of Sevenoaks, Otford (Seven- oaks) and Otford Castle (Sevenoaks), from which it would appear that there were two, if not three, different bodies in existence in the district. They all dropped out, however, about 1880, and in the Isle of Sheppey cours- ing did not continue much longer, for no returns are given after the season 1882-3. A year later the Wye (East Kent) meetings came into existence ; but they, too, have now disappeared from the fixture list. In the last quarter of the nineteenth cen- tury coursing was promoted by the North Kent Club and by the Cliffe and Hundred of Hoo Club, and subsequently the Gravesend and the Edenbridge and Tonbridge Clubs came into being. An amalgamation of the Gravesend and Cliffe Clubs eventually took place, and they, together with the Eden- bridge and Tonbridge Club, provide the only coursing now held in the county. Each conducted several highly successful meet- ings in the season of 1906-7, the Gravesend cards being generally the strongest, although nothing ambitious is attempted. These clubs are apparently in a prosperous position, although — situated as their meetings are at a great distance from the northern training grounds — they do not attract much more than local support. No allusion to Kentish coursing would be complete without mention of Colonel North, who resided at Avery Hill, Eltham. His famous dog, FuUerton, divided the Water- loo Cup of 1889 and won outright in the three succeeding years. Although trained in Northumberland, Fullerton spent his declin- ing years at the home of his proud owner. Destined to be the centre of sensational incidents, Fullerton proved to be, at the stud, as complete a failure as he had been a remark- able success in the coursing arena. The scare caused by his straying from his Eltham home, and the hue and cry raised during the few days he was missing, are fresh in the memory, and served to show how great a public idol Fullerton was. May Kent herself produce one as good ere long ! RACING The story of Kentish racing is such that of the kingdom. Indeed, of its one time its chapters must deal principally with the incidents of a long buried past, for the county has been one of those most severely affected for a considerable period by the establish- ment of more popular fixtures in other parts fame as a home of sport upon the Turf, it must be admitted that practically nothing nowadays remains. This regrettable state of affairs is in no sense the fault of Kent or of those good 492