The Fitzwilliam is full of contrasts. The kennels are a Gothick folly in the grand setting of Milton Park where there are said to have been hounds since the reign of Richard II. The park and the setting of the listed buildings within it is as beautiful as ever, although on the very outskirts of expanding Peterborough. If anywhere, this is a clear situation where such a long established hunting tradition should be allowed to continue.

Beyond the park itself, the hunting country is a mixture of prairie-like farmland and traditional hunting country interspersed with hedges and coverts. The sample Historic Hunting Landscape selected was therefore one which shows that contrast. It lies around the village of Great Gidding, some ten miles south-west of Peterborough.

The pub at Great Gidding is, appropriately, The Fox and Hounds.

A typical hunting day will circle around the village but will probably end abruptly at the north west boundary of the HHL where Gypsy Lane divides the almost featureless and extensive arable farming to the north-west from the hedges, rough grassland, brooks and coverts south west of Flittermere Gorse.

If hunting were abolished, the land on either side of Gypsy Lane would probably soon be indistinguishable - wide open and farmed only for profit.

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Date uploaded to site 26 April 2000