SIR — North Hill has always been a place of unsurpassed beauty and tranquility, but not so on Wednesday November 11.

The peace was shattered by the noise of a quad bike being ridden off road, disturbing the peace and causing a small heard of 12 or 14 Exmoor ponies to take fright and stampede away from this ungodly noise.

I wondered at the time what could be the cause of their obvious terror - not just the quad bikes but the presence of riders and hounds out hunting.

Yes, we know if questioned they will say they were trail hunting. What nonsense. There cannot be anyone living in the country today who does not know that hunting takes place on a regular basis and that the police and Crown Prosecution Service will not lift a finger to intervene, regardless of how many complaints or how much proof is put forward.

Here on Exmoor we are in the very heart of hunting country where city folk come for a "jolly" day out to persecute our wildlife, behave like thugs and call it "sport".

Many more country-born and bred folk like myself do not want to see a return of the bad old days with animals being chased for hours on end, only to meet a cruel and barbaric death by the mindless minority of blood lust louts who call it "fun".

Now that the National Trust has decided to re-introduce hunting on land it owns I can only hope that the public who pay their annual subscriptions will withhold them until the National Trust can and does put this public money to better use.

Then maybe we can return to the peace and serenity so that many more thousands of tourists pay many millions of pounds to come to this once unspoilt and beautiful part of Somerset.

R M Morris,

Address supplied.