JOHN WILLIAMS, master of the Four Burrow Hounds from 1955 to 1978, has died aged 82.

Mr Williams, the father of Grand National winning trainer Venetia Williams, then moved to Herefordshire and farmed on the banks of the River Wye at Aramstone.

He was extremely influential in the postwar development of hound breeding; the Four Burrow Hounds being able to keep going during the war in a limited fashion because he was too young and his father had been severely wounded in the First World War.

Mr Williams came from a distinguished Cornish family and was the fourth of four generations to be masters of the Four Burrow from 1857 to 1977, with one 15-year gap.

His family was heavily involved in tin mining and engineering in Cornwall and was closely associated with Brunel in the construction of the tunnels for the Greta Line, the building of the Tamar Bridge and the construction of the Plymouth Breakwaters.

He was intensely proud of his Cornish heritage and full of happy memories of his hunting life there.

After the war he was commissioned into the Blues (Royal Horse Guards) and served for some years in Germany, where one of his roles was to guard Rudolf Hess in Berlin.

He returned to London for mounted duties and was an outrider of the state coach at the Queen's coronation.

He recalled: "I sat on a horse in the inner courtyard of Buckingham Palace.

"The Duke of Edinburgh came out and got into the gold coach then Her Majesty came out – a tiny figure, she stood there a commanding and immaculate figure. She surveyed her Household Cavalry."

He left the Army to return to Cornwall in 1955 and joined his father in the mastership of the Four Burrow Hounds.

In 1977 he moved to Herefordshire to take up the reins of Aramstone Estate where he took over the farming and the stud founded by his father.

Mr Williams was a devoted family man. He leaves his second wife Lois, his two daughters Venetia and Caroline, and stepdaughter Karen.