History of the Bedale Hunt

The Bedale country originally formed part of the immense Raby territory hunted by the Earl of Darlington (1st Duke of Cleveland). "The Raby Hunt" Bedale Club seems to have been formed at a meeting held at the Black Swan, Bedale, on 31st October, 1816 (The Bedale Hunt printed privately). After 53 years as Master of Hounds, owing to failing health, Lord Darlington gave up the Bedale country in 1832, and in 1839 the Raby country.

On his resignation Mark Millbank, of Thorpe Perrow, took the Bedale country. In 1906 the Bedale Hunt Committee lent a tract of moorland in the north western corner to the late Conyers Scrope, of Danby, who gave up his hounds in 1907. See The Bedale Country by Captin F.H. Reynard (Dresser & Co., Darlington, 1908).

In 1931 Edward Burrill of Masham was loaned a part of the Bedale country west of the River Ure, later increased by a south part of the country in the triangle Ripon, Topcliffe and Boroughbridge. From 1931-35 Mr. Burrill hunted this country two days a week with his own hounds, kennelled near Masham.

In 1962 the stretch west of the Ure was loaned to J.E. Ramsden. This has now been increased to include the Ripon, Topcliffe, Boroughbridge Triangle and a strip between Leeming Bar and Raniton, bounded on the west by the A1 and the east by the River Swale.