Sporting Life: the New Forest Beagles, hunting the clean boot and a long love of beagling

My grandfather loved horses and hounds and followed many different packs throughout his lifetime. My father, aunt and uncle were all enthusiastic followers of our local beagle pack. It is, then, perhaps unsurprising that I became interested in all genres of hunting with hounds – but particularly beagles – from a very early age.

As a youngster, I accompanied my father most Saturdays during the season as he hunted with the Holme Valley Beagles. As a teenager, I whipped-in for the nearby Colne Valley and spent many of my evenings and weekends helping out at its kennels.

Around that time, I also became a regular reader of Shooting Times – an era that coincided with Philip Brown as editor. Keen on encompassing all manner of fieldsports within the covers of the magazine, Philip often included articles connected to hunting – including beagling.

The work of renowned hunting photographer Jim Meads regularly featured. The somewhat eccentric John Morrison – variously secretary, treasurer, whipper-in, master and huntsman of both the Shropshire and Staffordshire Beagles – wrote articles under the pen name of Loppylugs, the colloquial name for a hare.

Shooting Times writers who inspired a love of beagling

The equally eccentric Jack Ivester Lloyd recounted days spent with registered beagle packs and of the ‘Bagley Rat Hounds’ – his own little conglomeration of terriers and beagles, with which he pursued the rabbits and rats in the fields and ditches surrounding his home.

Written with flair, humour and enthusiasm, their words inspired and encouraged. It is undoubtedly through them and my early upbringing that I developed an enduring fondness for beagles and beagling. It also led me to write my first-ever book – Beagling – published by David & Charles in 1987.

Beagling in 2026 and hunting the clean boot

Beagling in 2026 is very different. To comply with its rules, many packs switched to trail-hunting once the Hunting Act 2004 came into force in 2005.

Some of the trail-hunting foxhound packs have introduced bloodhounds and now hunt the ‘clean boot’ – the scent of a human runner or ‘quarry’. However, it seems that not many of the trail-hunting beagle packs have followed their lead and turned to clean boot hunting.

One which has is the New Forest Beagles. I’ve recently visited them as they put in a few training sessions prior to their opening meet – and being in their company has certainly rekindled my long-held love of beagles and beagling.

Stuart Hannam is, on the days spent hunting the clean boot, the man in charge of the pack. Normally I would refer to him as the ‘huntsman’, but Stuart apparently prefers to be known as a ‘houndsman’ in order to get away from the negative connotations associated with any word directly referencing hunting.

It’s a seemingly small thing but an important one. There is undoubtedly a growing enthusiasm among followers for hunting the clean boot – several of whom would never have considered ‘hunting’ in its traditional form. Many of us who have long loved to watch houndwork see it (and draghunting) as being the best – and only – way of going forward into the future.

Pleasingly, there has been at least one new foot-pack formed specifically to hunt the clean boot. The Northern Counties Foot Hounds – a mix of beagles and griffon Vendéen basset hounds – regularly meet and hunt the wide-open spaces of north Lancashire, east Cumbria and southern Scotland under the management of Sean Frain and Alan Obrien.

Currently I follow them vicariously via Facebook but, although a long way to travel, hope – at some point – to experience at first hand the results of what the hard work, patience and determination necessary in creating such a pack can achieve.

Jeremy Hobson was a gamekeeper for over 30 years, regularly hunts and occasionally fishes, and is the author of over 30 fieldsports and country-based books.