A former huntswoman who has now devoted her life to saving animals told today of her distress when foxhounds swarmed across her wildlife haven.

Stay away: Annabel Holt confronts a local hunt as it passes near her smallholding at Stearsby Hagg Farm.

Annabel Holt with her animals in the haven at Stearsby Hagg Farm, near Brandsby, Helmsley

Annabel Holt says the hounds could have torn her smaller dogs apart had she been walking them at the time.

Now she is planning to set up a register of landowners who are opposed to hunting and who do not want horses or hounds coming over their land.

Annabel, 57, who rode for four decades with hunts including the Middleton and Sinnington, says she renounced her huntin', shootin', fishin' lifestyle when she came to realise the "horridness" of it all.

She used to regularly shoot pheasant and other creatures but says now of the sport: "It's revolting. It's a disgusting action which destroys wildlife."

Annabel, the daughter of the late Lt Col Percy Legard of Sheriff Hutton Park and the former wife of James Holt, current chairman of the Sinnington Hunt, says she started hunting when she was eight.

She said she was taught from an early age to believe that foxes were vermin.

"I bitterly wish I had not done what I did. I now revere the genetic brilliance of life," she said. But she revealed that her views had caused divisions between her and some members of her family.

She said she hoped to persuade others who are still involved in hunting and shooting to revere animals instead, and give up their traditional pursuit of the fox.

Annabel runs a 30-acre smallholding at Stearsby Hagg Farm, near Brandsby, Helmsley, where she keeps more than a dozen dogs and cats, plus sheep, cows and hens, some of which have been rescued from slaughter.

She spoke out yesterday after saying she saw hounds crossing a field where her sheep and cattle were grazing. She believed they were from her old hunt, the Middleton, but joint master and huntsman Frank Houghton-Brown said today that, while there had been a hunt in the area, none of the hounds had been on Annabel Holt's land.

Another joint master, Roland Stephenson, said it was impossible to stop hounds crossing people's land. "It's ridiculous," he said.

Annabel said she wants to set up All Life Planet, a register of landowners, initially in Yorkshire but later nationwide, who are also opposed to hunting and shooting and want to make a stand against hunts coming on their land.

She has a second plan to set up Living in Loving Adoration, a trust to which sympathetic landowners could leave their land to ensure that hunting could never again take place.

John Haigh, Yorkshire area spokesman for the Countryside Alliance, said today that former opponents of fox hunting, including former chief executives of the League Against Cruel Sports, had now become supporters.

And he claimed that many more people actively supported hunting than were opposed to it. "In March last year, 300,000 went to London in support of hunting and against a Bill to ban it. When an anti-hunt demonstration was held, 2,000 turned up," he claimed.

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