On 27th November 1858 Robert Dixon left his home at The Rookings Patterdale, which still stands today in the shadow of Place Fell, to follow the Patterdale Foxhounds.

A member of a Lakeland hunting family, his brother Edward Birkett Dixon had been a past huntsman. During the course of the morning he fell to his death from Striding Edge on the Helvellyn range of mountains.A memorial was erected in his memory which reads,

In memory of Robert Dixon of Rooking Patterdale who was killed on this spot on the 27th day of November 1858 following the Patterdale Foxhounds.

He was buried in Patterdale Churchyard three days later.

Not as well known as Charles Gough who also fell from Striding Edge in 1805 after setting out from Ullswater to fish in Thirlmere by way of Helvellyn. His body was guarded by his dog for some months until found on the shores of Red Tarn by a farmer. Gough was immortalised by Sir Walter Scott (Helvellyn) and Coleridge but best remembered by Wordsworth's poem Fidelity.

Sadly this was not the first accident to involve the Dixon family. Clarke's survey of 1789 recounts the following tale ...

At one of these huntings (he was speaking of the Mardale Shepherds' Meet) a man, now living in Kentmere whose name was Dixon, fell down the immense rock called Blea Water Crag. This precipice is commonly said to be 500 yards high (but I think 300 will be near the truth) and in many places overhangs the base. He had no bones broke, but was terribly bruised, and was almost completely scalped, so that now he has no hair upon his head, except a little above one of his ears. He struck his head several times against the rock in his fall, but says he was not sensible of it, and when he came to the bottom he instantly raised himself upon his knees, and in his own country dialect cried out 'Lads, t, fox is gane out at t hee end, lif t dogs on and ill come syun' (Lads the fox is going out the head end, put the hounds on and I'll come soon). It is 26 years since (viz 1761) this remarkable accident and the place has ever since borne the name of Dixons Three Jumps."