Black Horse Inn (N Yorks)

A “Charming village inn…The Black Horse Inn is a beautiful inn in Kirkby Fleetham in the Hambleton District of North Yorkshire, which resides between the North York Moors & Yorkshire Dales National Parks.” An Inn (if you’ve not guessed that yet) right on the edge of two ‘national parks’ renowned for hunting and shooting. The mounted stag’s head looking wide-eyed from above the fireplace in the dining room might just be all the clue you need to guess how the owners of the Black Horse feel about those two ‘sports’, but in case there’s any doubt the Inn hosts the Bedale Hunt’s annual ‘hunt ball’ fundraiser (and certainly used to host the Kirkby Fleetham Shoot dinner too, as a 2015 social media post shows) and is one of the Bedale’s regular meet venues – and in fact was where a meet of the Bedale rode out from before killing a young vixen highlighted in a HIT report posted on the Facebook page of the East Yorkshire Coast Hunt Sabs in February 2023. The Bedale is listed on the Kirkby Fleetham with Fencotes Parish Council website under ‘Clubs, Societies, Leisure Activities’ – the hunt has their kennels in Little Fencote, which is just a short ride from the Black Horse…