News: 150-year-old Tarporley Hunt Cup finally returns to village thanks to retired executive

Dec 14 2009 Chester Chronicle

A SILVER trophy has returned home more than 150 years after it was presented at a village race meeting in Tarporley.

The 12-inch tall Tarporley Hunt Cup was won by James Platt on his racehorse Welsh Heiress in 1858.

Now after being discovered in a house in Surrey it has been sold at auction for £2,500 to a purchaser on behalf of Tarporley Hunt Club founded in 1762.

William Speigelberg, a retired Greenalls brewery executive, successfully bid for the trophy against strong competition from collectors and racing fans.

The Tarporley Hunt Club steeplechase began when seven members issued a challenge for a sweepstake of ten guineas each to race their horses in a four-mile heat at Crabtree Green, near Delemere.

The meetings were abandoned in 1939 shortly before the outbreak of World War Two but the name survives as an upmarket dining club believed to be the oldest in the world at The Swan in Tarporley.

The club has its meeting in the same room where it was founded over 200 years ago.

Mr Speigelberg, who lives in Tarporley, said after the auction at Ewbank Clarke Gammon Wellers in Woking, Surrey, that it would be kept securely under lock and key.

He was almost beaten at the post for the trophy, estimated to sell for £1,800, but his final bid clinched it for the club.

“I’m delighted to have saved the cup with my final bid and to be bringing it back to Tarporley where it belongs,” he said.

The Tarporley Hunt Steeplechases, held under the patronage of the Duke and Duchess of Westminster who entertained lavishly on the course, attracted large crowds as part of the county’s social and sporting calendar.

The two-handled cup decorated with horse-drawn chariots and classical figures was made by the Irish silversmith James le Bass in Dublin in 1832-33.