Nancy Penn Smith Hannum
Cheshire Centennial Meet at Brooklawn
Cheshire Honorary Whipper-In Paddy Neilson, Huntsman Ivan Dowling, and professional whipper-in Stephanie Boyer at Brooklawn / Noel Mullins photo
Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds (PA), founded in 1912, are celebrating their Centennial this season. W. Plunkett Stewart, a Philadelphia banker, set out to find the perfect hunting country and settled on the rolling hills, rich pastureland and extensive woods around Unionville. As what in modern terms could be classed as a committed environmentalist, he purchased thousands of acres of land and, before reselling, amended deeds to restrict development and nurture conservancy, clean water, and natural habitat. As a result of his efforts and the culture of conservation he passed on, the Cheshire hunting country today boasts thirty square miles and twenty-six thousand acres free from ribbon residential and commercial development that has allowed foxhunting and National Hunt racing to thrive.
Nancy Penn Smith Hannum, 1919-2010: A Fixity of Purpose
April 1, 2020
“Hundreds of hurrying people pass within a few miles of Unionville, Pennsylvania, every day—unaware of the magical transformation that waits over a hill and down a road. The village guards the entrance to acres and acres of rolling grassland suspended between the suburbs of Wilmington and Philadelphia like a mirage."
“Immediately noticeable about this unexpected sweep of countryside is the luxury of miles of turf as closely woven and sturdy as homespun. And there is a wondrous absence of wire. No barbed wire, no hog wire, no flagged and electrified monofilament. The post-and-rail fences stretch on and on like railroad tracks. It’s the sort of landscape that strikes organ chords of rapture in a horseman’s soul: gallop-and-jump country, simply an outstanding foxhunting country. It has been painted by renowned artists George Weymouth and Andrew and Jamie Wyeth; filmed by Alfred Hitchcock (the hunt scenes in Marnie); been crash-landed on by Jacky Onassis and those not so famous. And for nearly fifty years, it has been nurtured by Nancy Penn Smith Hannum, the master of Mister Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds.”*
