Thrale history

Search • Advanced Search • Search Families • Search Site

First Name:   Last Name:   ID:  

interesting speculation whether that drawing, executed about 1671 was a study for the painting at Sandridge. Barlow is regarded as the father of English sporting art. Whether it is by his hand is difficult to say, but perhaps the horses are not sturdy enough and the hounds not drawn with sufficient skill. Also there appears to be minor changes in the dress of the huntsmen, indicating they had been transformed by a later hand from the seventeenth to the early eighteenth century. Probably therefore, the painting may be attributed to, more correctly, a follower of Barlow who was well acquainted with his work and with the Oxford drawing. The same group of hounds then known as 'southern-mouthed' hounds, were introduced by Barlow into a large frieze-like painting of a hare hunt in the possession of the Earl of Onslow at Clandon Park.³⁶

No Mans Land had always been used for all sorts of sporting activities. Watford beat Hertfordshire in a cricket match by a hundred and four runs in August 1824. In 1829 a race meeting was promoted by Thomas Coleman, a well-known trainer of horses, who lived at The Chequers Inn, St. Albans. The King's horse won the Gorhambury Stakes, but the meeting was not a financial success. A two day steelechase meeting was held in the middle of May 1833, and at the end of that month a dreadful fight took place in which Deaf Burke knocked out Simon Byrne, the champion of Ireland, in the ninety-ninth round. They were fighting for three hours and sixteen minutes. Mr. Byrne died four days later so Mr. Burke and his seconds were tried for manslaghter, but they avoided any penalty as it could not be proved that death was caused by the injuries sustained in the fight. Whilst hardly being considered as sporting activities, it is worthy of note that during the fifteenth century the gallows for the area were erected on No Mans Land.

It was as sole heir to this No Mans Land estate that Ralph Thrale was born in 1778. There is in the possession of Richard Thrale a portrait of Ralph and Sarah his wife, showing a quiet thoughtful man in sombre clothing.³⁷ In the census return of 1841 he is shown as also holding Mackerye End with his son William. He also left a family bible in which he inscribed some rather simple stanzas such as -

Ralph Thrale, his book,
God save him grace wherein to look,
Not only look but understand,
That learning is better than health or land,
For when house and land is gone and spent,
Then learning is most excellent.

Footnotes

36. Art Expert: Country Life.↩︎
37. Purchased by Mr. Ralph Thrale from Mr. S. Collins of Wheathampstead in 1925 who in turn had purchased them from Mr. Thrale Cox of Hill End Farm who stated they came from "where the museum was".↩︎