blessing of the hounds

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Blessing of the Hounds - In a little church nestled in between rolling pastures and open meadows, up to 1000 people, horses, and hounds gather each fall for a traditional blessing of the hounds. Grace Episcopal Church in Keswick has continued this tradition annually. In 1729 the Reverend Frank Leslie Robinson started the Blessing of the Hounds in order to get the “unchurched” to church. He recognized that this was a way to reach out to the community, embrace the love for the animals, and ‘preach’ to the Sportspeople in the community that were not regular churchgoers. For Mr John Stewart, M.F.H, this was a way to add a bit of prestige and class to his Keswick Hunt, for which he had just become the Master. For those that understand the hunt, it can be considered a type of religion, “High Church”, with the pews replaced by saddles and the hymns replaced with the sounds of the horns and hounds. The discipline and focus of the hunt, from the training of the dogs and horses to the preparation of the trails. This discipline and focus can only be Welcome to Grace Episcopal Church and our annual Thanksgiving Day service, The Blessing of the Hounds. This service was first held at Grace Church on November 28, 1929 and has continued annually since then. The service first began under the auspices of the Reverend Frank Leslie Robinson and Mr. John Stewart, M.F.H. The Rev. Robinson was rector of Grace Church from 1910 to 1942, and he saw the service as an opportunity to preach to “sports people” in the community who weren’t regular churchgoers. For Mr. Stewart, the service brought style and prestige to the Keswick Foxhounds, of which he was the newly elected Master. Grace Church is one of the first churches in this country to have a Blessing of the Hounds service, and it remains one of the few to continue the tradition. Hunting and religion are both part of the

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