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As part of its Millennium programme
The Mastiff Association
in collaboration with
The National Trust
at
Lyme Hall and Park
Disley, Cheshire

were delighted to arrange for a MASTIFF presence

at the re-opening of 'THE CAGE'

on the Spring Holiday weekend

of 28th & 29th May 2000

‘The Cage’, as it is known locally, is a Hunting Lodge set high on the hillside in Lyme Park to the left of the main driveway down to Lyme Hall from the now busy Disley to Manchester A6 main road. After undergoing extensive restoration, The Cage re-opened in time for the 2000 Spring Holiday weekend and the Mastiff Association was honoured to be asked to provide a ‘Mastiff presence’ for the occasion.

Four groups of willing ‘volunteers’ agreed to attend over the two-day period in order to give visitors the opportunity of seeing at close quarters the breed for which Lyme Hall is famous.

The historical link between Mastiffs and Lyme Hall is well documented and what follows is just a brief account of the record. Information taken from an article by Kedrun Laurie in the 25th May 1978 edition of Country Life magazine is hereby acknowledged.

Until 1946, Lyme Hall (in the English County of Cheshire) was the ancestral home of the Legh family, and back through the generations to the early 1400s the family had bred a strain of the Mastiff breed.

The fame of the Lyme Hall strain of 'English' Mastiff rests on the claim that it had been kept pure and uncrossed from 1415 until its extinction in the early 1900s, thus giving it the oldest pedigree known to breeders. Although, as seems likely, occasional out-crosses were made to prevent deterioration of the stock, there is no reason to doubt the general truth of the family tradition.

In 1415, Sir Piers Legh was wounded in battle at Agincourt and lay undiscovered on the battlefield as night closed in. His Mastiff bitch which had accompanied him as part of his knightly cortege guarded her master until his safe removal to Paris by English soldiers. The bitch later whelped and legend implies that the pups were raised with unusually great care by the Legh family as a reward for the faithfulness of their dam, and so the foundations of the pure Lyme Hall strain of Mastiffs were laid.

The legend is next found to be connected with the portrait of a dog in the stained glass of the drawing-room window at Lyme Hall - almost certainly the earliest depiction of a Lyme Mastiff. The dog bears little resemblance to the traditional Lyme Mastiff, being more of foxhound type so that if it was a Mastiff, it must be accepted that, over the years, there must have been some evolution in the appearance of the strain.

It is recorded that in 1604 "a cupple of Lyme hounds of singular qualities" were sent by James 1 of England to Philip 111 of Spain to mark the end of hostilities between the two countries. It has been suggested that these two dogs might be ancestors to the splendid Mastiff stretched out in the foreground of Velasquez's 1656 painting of the Spanish Court Las Meninas. This is an attractive possibility, providing perhaps the first portrait of the traditional Lyme Mastiff with its fawn coat, long muzzle and immense size, a much more purely bred specimen than that in the drawing room window.

References to the Lyme Mastiff virtually disappear until the 19th century, but it can be imagined that the Legh family, living remotely at Lyme Hall, were breeding their strain with care, as watchdogs and as companions. In the world outside, the Mastiff pursued its uglier reputation as a cur with a history of use for bear and bull-baiting.This was a smaller, more agile variety of the breed, similar in appearance to a Bulldog.

In the 19th century the selective breeding of Mastiffs began to be practised outside the nobility - and with a completely different end in view; that of the competitive show. The Lyme Hall strain was much sought after as breeding stock, having the longest claim to purity of any line of Mastiffs. Then fashions in showing circles changed and turned against the long-headed Mastiff with the result that the Lyme Hall strain became unpopular. W.J. Legh, later the first Baron Newton and master of Lyme from 1857 to 1898, incurred unpopularity when he refused to show Lyme Mastiffs in public competition and also exercised very great caution to requests to use his stock for breeding. A smear campaign in the press suggested that Lyme Mastiffs were not pure nor good enough to breed from and gradually the show mastiff became in appearance what it is today - a much heavier version sporting a short broad muzzle with a certain amount of wrinkle instead of the long head of the Lyme strain.

W.J. Legh kept a second strain of Mastiffs, Lord Stamford's breeding, for use as guard dogs by his keepers and these were kept at Lyme Hall until after the First World War - long after the Lyme strain had become extinct around 1905.

By the time of its extinction, the Lyme Hall Mastiff had regained its former position of awe and a visitor to Lyme in 1903 recorded that he could hear the baying of some great dogs, the sound coming from behind the Hall for here, in extensive kennels, is kept the purest breed of Mastiffs in existence.

Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, those kennels are still to be seen and are currently being refurbished. The Mastiff Association eagerly awaits the day when that work is complete and the kennels can be filled with Mastiffs again (if only temporarily) to celebrate their re-opening.

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