Out in Warwickshire with the campaigners who fear the trust’s hunting guidelines might be breached

From a carefully chosen vantage point on the National Trust’s Farnborough Hall estate in Warwickshire, Darryl Cunnington, a former police officer, spotted 40 to 50 black-jacketed riders gathering on a country lane.

“They’ve got a licence to trail hunt in the estate today,” said the 59-year-old, peering at the Warwickshire Hunt meet through binoculars. “But we’re here because trail hunting is, in my opinion, a cover for illegal foxhunting.”

Many National Trust members are furious that the charity is allowing its land to be used by hunts, which they claim are flouting the 2005 ban on chasing wild mammals with dogs. The trust’s board narrowly defeated a motion by members seeking to prevent trail hunting on the trust’s estates last year, and the charity says it works hard to ensure all trail hunts on its land remain within the law.

But Cunnington, who joined the League Against Cruel Sports as an investigator in 2012, says the trust cannot possibly check all 288 days of licensed trail hunting on its land this season. “The National Trust is there to preserve the countryside not to facilitate illegal hunting,” he said. “There are a lot of hunts and lots of National Trust estates. There is no way they can properly police it.”

This month, Surrey Union Hunt withdrew from three planned hunts on trust land after animal welfare activists produced photographs they claimed showed the hunt’s hounds had disembowelled a fox. The Surrey Union denies any wrongdoing.

According to the league, these incidents are not unusual. It has received 40 reports of suspected illegal activity, including fox kills and trespassing, by hunts given licences by the trust since 2017. “The trust needs to take into account the behaviour of hunts when it is granting licences,” said Martin Sims, the league’s head of investigations, who used to run the police’s national wildlife crime unit. The Warwickshire Hunt has been given a licence for eight days of trail hunting this season even though the league claims it was caught trespassing on Farnborough Hall last year.

Sims says that this should have set alarm bells ringing: “Why would they have gone on trust land if they were following a trail? It indicates they were following a fox.”

After last year’s clash between members and the board, the trust recruited a specialist team to check that hunts are sticking to their licence conditions, which include laying artificial fox scent trails and not using terrier men, who traditionally use dogs to flush out foxes hiding underground.

Back in Warwickshire’s rolling hills, the league’s investigators were trying to get closer to the hunt. But the car in which Cunnington and the Observer were travelling was intercepted by some of the hunt’s stewards. A young man carrying a video camera jumped out of a black Land Rover as the investigators pulled up to get a better view of the hunt. He filmed Cunnington as the riders searched for a pack of hounds in the valley below. “I just wanted to know who you were,” said the man. “I’m very suspicious. I’ve seen you driving around the area.”

One of the riders, Simon Richards, who is a Warwickshire Hunt master, insisted that they were not following a fox: “The only thing we are allowed to do is trail hunting.”

In the nearby village of Farnborough the residents took a different view. Mark Harrison, who was putting up Christmas decorations outside his house, said: “I’m a countryman. But I do not support hunting foxes or hares or any other live animal with dogs. I think it is barbaric and old fashioned.” Harrison, who has lived in the area for 20 years, added: “The trust are the custodians of so much of the countryside – I think they need to look very carefully about what their members would want.”

In a roadside snack bar, Kevin Dancer was serving teas and coffees. He said: “Hunting is okay but going at them with dogs is wrong. The National Trust should allow them as long as they are obeying the law.”

The trust said licence applications for trail hunts were carefully considered and staff carried out spot-checks. “If any of the terms of our licence agreements are proven to have been breached during these checks, we’ll take strong, immediate action with the relevant hunt,” it said.

The charity said it was aware of an incident in which some hounds from the Warwickshire Hunt briefly strayed on to trust land last year. “We did not consider this minor infringement to be sufficient on its own to either revoke or prevent any future licence applications,” it said.

The Warwickshire Hunt said that it operated within the law. “Hunts, including ours, are regularly subjected to spurious and unfounded allegations regarding their legal hunting activities by anti-hunting activists,” it said, adding that the alleged trespass on trust property was dealt with by the hunt and the trust last year.