Welcome to the Ashford Valley Hunt website!

What's On Now & What's Happened

(17/05/2008) - Hunter Trial Schedule

(05/05/2008) - Lurcher, Terrier and Fun Dog Show

A little bit about us

On Saturday, February 19, 2005, the day after hunting live quarry with hounds was banned in England and Wales, the Ashford Valley Hunt met as it normally does on a Saturday morning in the hunting season. The difference this time was that hounds were hunting an artificial line - a bundle of rags steeped in a pungent, fox-scented mixture of the huntsman's devising, dragged across country behind a quad bike.

It was the first time the Ashford Valley hounds had hunted an artificial scent, but it wasn't the first time that the hunt had reinvented itself in order to keep hunting alive by adapting to changing times. The hunt began in 1873, when four private harrier packs were amalgamated under the mastership of John Buckland, a farmer from Great Chart. The Ashford Valley Harriers hunted hare and the occasional fox, but after the First World War, when hare became scarce, they switched to hunting foxes exclusively and in 1922 were recognized by the MFHA as the Ashford Valley Foxhounds.

John Buckland's son, Harry, who eventually succeeded him as Master, was a remarkable horseman who began whipping in to his father at the age of 11, and first hunted hounds at 12. In 1909, on an Irish horse, Marmion, he jumped 7ft 2in to win the World's Championship High Jump at Olympia, and he served as a Master of the East Galway hunt, in 1913, and as honorary huntsman to the Mid-Kent Staghounds from 1909 to 1913. In this role, lightly disguised as "Harry Buckman", he appears in Siegfried Sassoon's novel, Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man.

Even in the Bucklands' day, Kent was regarded as difficult hunting country - intensively cultivated, heavily populated and crisscrossed with roads and railways. Yet thanks to the generosity of the Ashford Valley's farmers in continuing to invite the hunt onto their land, masters and huntsmen right up to the present day have succeeded in showing good sport in a hunt country that extends from the M20 to Romney Marsh and offers a variety of challenges to riders and foot followers, from woodland and orchards to open grassland with well maintained hunt jumps and hedges.

The present huntsman, Neil Staines, who has served with the hunt since 1993, has bred with the assistance of the hound trustees a keen and biddable pack of hounds which has adapted remarkably well to hunting an artificial scent. The hunt meets at 11am on Wednesdays and Saturdays in the full season, which begins in November and ends in March. Autumn hunting begins in September.

The meet card offers a variety of different days, suitable to all levels of competence, from complete novices to experienced riders - check with the Hon. Secretary for details. Wherever the meet, visitors to the Ashford Valley can always be sure of a friendly welcome and the unique privilege of following hounds across country not normally open to visitors.