Fashion brand Boden highlighted for its support of notorious hunt
But it makes no efforts to hide its love for hunting
High street fashion brand Boden provides financial and material support to the Blackmore and Sparkford Vale Hunt. And a recent exposé highlights just how close the relationship is.
Justice for Nid
On 20th June 2021, Hunting Leaks posted documents from the Blackmore and Sparkford Vale Hunt (BSV). One of the documents contained a recent list of “gate openers”, or volunteers that open and close gates throughout a hunt’s route. And on 16th January it named “The Boden Family” as the would-be gate openers of the day, had the country not entered a Covid-19 lockdown two weeks previous. A source told The Citro that the hunt would have met in Holwell that day, approximately 20 miles from the Boden family home at Wytherstone Farm.
Hunting Leaks also shared BSV’s programme for its 2019 summer ball, which contained a two-page advert for Boden. Meanwhile, the 7th November 2019 issue of Horse & Hound contained a photo captioned: “Stella Boden takes on a Blackmore Vale hedge”. Stella Boden is the daughter of Johnnie Boden, the fashion brand’s founder.
The BSV has left a legacy of violence in its wake. Most notably, in 2014, huntsman Mark Doggrell trampled hunt saboteur Nid Warren, leaving her with broken ribs and a collapsed lung. Despite video of the incident, a jury found Doggrell not guilty. And in August 2018, a judge found hunt supporter Peter Charles Brooks guilty of assault on two hunt monitors during a BSV meet.
In February 2019, Doggrell was filmed in the midst of a pub fight alongside sons Edward and Ben. The two sons ultimately pleaded guilty to affray and were handed suspended sentences. And most recently, in December 2020, a Somerset Wildlife Crime monitor was knocked over by riders with the BSV.
But the BSV has also hit the news for other reasons too. In February 2019, for example, monitors caught the hunt taking its hounds along a busy A road in “poorly lit conditions”. And the same monitoring groups filmed the hunt chasing a fox through a graveyard in March 2019. Despite footage from multiple cameras, the BSV escaped prosecution. And it escaped any criminal proceeding whatsoever following a December 2020 incident where monitors filmed its hounds chasing a fox across a field, as The Citro recently reported.
The Citro contacted Boden for comment on its associations with BSV’s legacy but hadn’t received a reply at the time of publishing.
Bowler hat youth
The Boden family’s connections with hunting are much further reaching than just the BSV, though. When buying Wytherstone Farm in 2005, Johnnie Boden also bought several acres of surrounding land. This included a manor own by pro-hunt former MP Oliver Letwin. And the farm’s location within the Cattistock Hunt’s country has led to close connections with that hunt as well.
A recent auction on controversial auction website Jumblebee for the Cattistock Hunt had the Boden name all over it. Johnnie Boden won three of the lots including “a days hunting on the back of a quad bike”. He is also named as part of another lot, providing “moral support” for the winner of a lesson in ‘hedge schooling’. Boden has long sat as vice president of the Cattistock Hunt Pony Club. And Wytherstone Farm will also host an event for the club in August 2021.
And despite his city boy stockbroker makings, Boden has a history with hunting. A Guardian profile in 2003 said:
It's no surprise that [Boden] - who hunted in a bowler hat as a youth - himself attended the Countryside March, such a solidly Boden event that Rory Bremner recently joked on Parkinson that he only went along to see what was in the catalogue.
Mounting pressure
Boden has never hidden its connections with hunting. But the hunting industry is making the news for all the wrong reasons right now and is under its biggest strain since the Hunting Act. Boden, as a high-street retailer, doesn’t need that type of association.
Want to support The Citro? Click here to contribute.
Headline image via Weymouth Animal Rights