Hunting and the death of Queen Victoria

                                                 Views from Cambridge Terrace

Collingwood was now writing hunting reports for the local newspaper.

22 January 1901 – newspaper report

The sad news of our national loss reaches me as I commence to write of Tuesday, and the melancholy tidings forbid me to speak of such a light thing as hunting – the English-speaking race are too engrossed in their bitter sorrow to heed such flippant matter, and are deeply mourning the death of the beloved Queen. ……

Diary, 23 January 1901, Mancetter

Of course the death of the Queen has pro tem stopped all hunting so I went over, on Cook’s invitation, to shoot at Grendon. We only killed 5 pheasants and about 6 rabbits.[1]

2 February 1901, London

Today has been the day of the late Queen’s funeral – a pageant that was at once memorable and gay. It was melancholy merely from the sad circumstances attached to it and the hushed silence of the crowd that listened to the rhythmical tread of the soldiers – it was gay from the varied and bright costumes of the procession that presented a gorgeous combination of colours and from the many crowned heads that helped to compose it. Even the Royal coffin itself was covered under a silken pall of white material and drawn upon a gun carriage, behind 8 gaily harnessed cream-colored stallions. The houses and windows that commanded the line of the route fetched large sums; for the building Pids hired in Cambridge Terrace he gave 100 guineas.

9 February 1901, Mancetter

The frost having disappeared, I returned to Atherstone, staying the night at Grendon. In the tall elms that stand round the Hall, an owl lives and at night his hooting cry is plainly heard from the rooms of the house. The noise struck me as a combination of a pigeon’s coo and a barn-door cock’s crow, but being at the same time thick and throaty.