Chris Lloyd joins the Hurworth Hunt as it celebrated a milestone with the re-enactment of a 19th Century scene captured on canvas

IT'S an idyllic English winter's day beneath a beautiful blue sky. The Cleveland Hills, snowclad from top to toe, rise majestically from the gently rolling countryside which sparkles brilliant white in the cold sunshine.

A long line of cars pulls up beside a country lane above Neasham, near Darlington. There are about 20 of them. Round the corner is another handful; back down Sockburn Lane there's another huddle.

All the occupants shield their eyes, and binoculars, against the winter sun and peer towards a wood about half-a-mile away. Inside the wood - the Black Planting - is the Hurworth Hunt.

"I think there's that much hoofin' in there that they are just dancin' around," says a ruddy-faced farmer, staring at the distant trees.

The day began with a warming stirrup cup at Neasham Abbey, the place where 200 years ago the Hunt was formed. On the bank of the Tees, they assembled beneath an old tree to re-enact a picture painted by John Ferneley, in 1846.

"Unfortunately, horses and hounds don't sit for pictures very well," said Hunt secretary Sarah Horner-Harker, "but it will be a lasting reminder for us of our bicentenary."

Because of the wintry weather, the horses were taken back to their boxes, and huntsman Joe Townsend sets off with 17.5 couple of black and tan foxhounds. Huntsmen, he explains, always count animals by the pair, "and we always take a half - it's an old tradition".

Noses down and tails up, the dogs search for a scent, and disappear into the "futty acres" of the Black Planting. The hunt followers take to their cars and, using their years of experience and knowledge of nature, park on the side of the lane where they think the fox will emerge.

"The fox will always cheek the wind - run sideways with the wind on its cheek," says Don Kendrew, chairman of the Hunt Supporters. "They don't like running with a tail wind because they steer themselves with their brush, and they don't like wind in their faces."

After half an hour staring at the wood, Don decides to change position. He has a radio linking him to inside the wood, and so many followers follow him, thinking he has inside information.

But just as he reaches the top of Sockburn Lane, the radio crackles into life. Joe says the fox has doubled back and is heading for the road the followers have just left.

"We just have to go where Rennie goes," says an old Yorkshire farmer getting back into his four-wheel drive vehicle.

To make matters worse, another follower reports having seen a vixen quietly sunning herself in a garden at Neasham.

"As long as we see a fox we are happy," says Don. "Everyone in the town just thinks you want to tear it to pieces and that's not so. Some people come out hunting, see a fox and go home content."

This time, the convoy crawls along the lane, windows open, ears straining for yelps from the wood.

"This year's pups can get fed up and start speaking to a rabbit or a hare," says Don, "but when Joe hears the right hounds speaking he will know they are true to a fox."

True to form, by the time the followers reach the verge they vacated 30 minutes earlier, the fox has been and gone - not once, but twice.

And he's holed up once more in the Black Planting.

"Rennie'll be smirking at us," says the old Yorkshire farmer getting back into his car.

Once more into Neasham. Once more along Sockburn Lane. Once more the hounds emerge from the wood with only stories to show for their efforts.

"We got that close to him in the haybales that I thought he was going to jump down Stormer's throat," says Joe the huntsman, referring to his lead hound. "But he side-stepped him neatly and was away."

Eventually, after nearly four hours on the move, Stormer chases a fox into an old artificial earth next to a large pheasant pen on the riverbank. This is shooting territory. Guns pay £4,000 for a fortnight's sport. Foxes are not tolerated.

Joe calls off the hounds and they obediently sit behind his whip. The local gamekeeper is informed; the terrier men go in. They put a net over one end of the earth and a terrier goes down the other. A gun - "a humane killer" - is at hand.

A strange silence falls over the followers. "I don't really like it this way," says Joe, "but the Hunt has to do what the landowner wants."

He moves off, blowing his horn, his hounds yelping eagerly at his heels. The sun is now very low, casting long shadows across the snowfields as they draw a hedgerow and head back into the constituency of Tony Blair, whose Government may soon decide whether yesterday's anniversary was the last hurrah of the Hurworth Hunt