WAS this the end for more than 240 years of British country tradition?

Members of one of the country's oldest hunts rode out over the North Yorkshire countryside for their last full legal meet yesterday.

Forty mounted members of the Middleton Hunt, which dates back to 1764, gathered on a glorious, crisp February morning at Foulrice Farm, Marton Lordship, at Marton-on-the-Forest.

It came on the day hunt supporters lost their latest legal appeal in the High Court against the Hunting Act, which bans hunting with dogs in England and Wales - meaning the ban will start at midnight today.

Charlie Gundry, 24, master of the hunt, gave huntsmen and women words of guidance as they sipped stirrup cups of whisky or ruby port and ate fruit cake, while the hunt's pedigree Studbrook hounds whipped round their horse's legs.

Mr Gundry said if people asked what they were going to do after the ban, they should say: "We are going to continue hunting, but within the law - and that's what we're going to do."

Mr Gundry said the hunt would meet twice a week until the end of the season and that he would "try and provide a bit of fun".

Edward Duke, a founder of the real Countryside Alliance, who hosted the meet at his home, said: "It's the last meet, but there'll be more meets and we will continue to hunt and we will find ways around the law. And we are determined to do that."

Animal rights campaigner Annabel Holt, who is a former hunt supporter, mounted a solitary protest with banners and placards at the gate of the farm.

Ms Holt, who hunted for 40 years, principally with the Middleton and the Sinnington hunts, was particularly aggrieved that the hunt was taking place so close to the remote farm in Stearsby where she lives with her 29 dogs.

Updated: 09:52 Thursday, February 17, 2005