PRESENTED BY
THE DOMESDAY BOOK OF DOGS
Lyme Hall Mastiffs.
This breed was descended from an in-whelp Mastiff bitch that survived the battle of Agincourt (1415). As knights and men-at-arms were wont to take their mastiffs with them into battle no one knew the sire of the litter for sure. The Lyme Hall breed was, at this time, a dark fawn almost reddish dog with a black muzzle. Early in the seventeenth century several outcrosses took place with the Bold family mastiffs which were, according to Col Wilson Patten, " to the advantage of both". Near the end of the nineteenth century an agent of mastiff breeder J. W. Thompson described the dogs as red in colour and of the 'true boarhound' type.
The last of the Lyme Hall Mastiffs were put down during the 1914 -1918 war as an act of patriotism due to the food shortage. Writing just before the dogs were destroyed Lady Newton observed that the dogs were of "... immense size, being almost as large as donkeys. They are pale lemon in colour, with gigantic heads somewhat resembling bloodhounds, black ears and muzzles, immensely broad chests, and soft brown eyes".
The Mastiff and Bullmastiff Handbook, Douglass B. Oliff
Boydell Press, an imprint of Boydell & Brewer
The Mastiff and Bullmastiff Handbook, Douglass B. Oliff
Boydell Press, an imprint of Boydell & Brewer
