.png)
One of the photographs in this collection shows a bloodhound called Snoopy of Brighton wearing a fisherman's hat, a pair of cat's eye spectacles and a paisley tie. He is not amused. He is also just one small, funny corner of something much bigger: the complete family archive of the Brighton Bloodhound Kennels, one of the oldest and most influential bloodhound kennels in Britain, which comes to auction at Aubreys in Guildford on 30th July.
The kennel was founded in 1908 by Henry Hylden and kept going for more than a century by his family, the Hyldens and the Ickeringills, through two world wars and every lean year in between. The archive has never left the family until now. It is being sold as a single collection, meaning everything goes together as one lot, and it carries an estimate of £300 to £500.
The oldest piece is a Kennel Club champion certificate for a bloodhound bitch named Lottie of Brighton, born on 15th June 1911, bred and owned by Henry Hylden himself. She was recognised as a champion in 1914 after winning at Crystal Palace, Alexandra Palace and Southampton, and the certificate still carries its red Kennel Club seal.
From the year after come two silver award plaques, each in its original fitted case, presented by The Bloodhound Hunt Club in 1915. One was won at Cheetham Hill by a dog called Peter of Brighton, the other at Hastings by Gentle of Brighton, both taking First Open Dog. A hundred and eleven years on, they still polish up beautifully.
There are seven framed oil paintings of the kennel's champions, heads and shoulders in gilt frames, several named on the canvas including Ch Brighton's Quester and Ch Brighton's Nimrod. Alongside them sits a silver inkwell hallmarked for Birmingham in 1930, a run of championship medals and Challenge Certificates, trophies, rosettes and the working papers of the kennel itself, its records, correspondence and printed ephemera.
Then there are the photographs, which are where the family really comes alive. Handlers walking hounds across the Downs, dogs being stacked for the show ring, a champion called Brighton's Nasturtium posing against a brick wall, and of course Snoopy in his hat and tie. In 2008 the American Bloodhound Club marked the kennel's centenary with a signed testimonial saluting the Hylden and Ickeringill family for a hundred years of work developing and preserving the breed. That certificate is in the sale too.
The collection can be viewed at Aubreys' saleroom at Loseley Park, Guildford, ahead of the sale on 30th July, and there is live online bidding at auctions.aubreys.com for anyone who cannot make it in person. The estimate is £300 to £500 for the archive as a whole.
If you have inherited something similar and have wondered what it might be worth, Aubreys offers free valuations, including home visits across Surrey and London.
Single-owner collections like this one, where everything has stayed with the family, hardly ever come up. You get the champions and the silver, but you also get the daft photograph of the dog in the hat, and that is what makes it. It is a hundred years of one family's life with these dogs, all in one lot.
Bloodhounds are one of the oldest scent breeds in the world, prized for a nose that has been put to work tracking everything from lost walkers to escaped prisoners. British breeders spent the early twentieth century refining the show type, and Brighton was among the names that set the standard, its dogs winning at the big shows and going on to breed champions elsewhere. That the whole record of a kennel like this has survived intact, from a 1911 champion through to a 2008 centenary, is genuinely unusual.
Aubreys Auctioneers & Valuers is an independent, family-run auction house at Loseley Park, Guildford, with an office in Mayfair, London, holding monthly specialist sales of jewellery, watches, silver, fine art and antiques, streamed live to international bidders. Free valuations, including home visits across Surrey and London: www.aubreys.com/free-valuation
