The hunting scene will return to Malton on Boxing Day after a lapse of ten months, but the surrounding countryside will be out of bounds to riders and hounds because of the foot- and-mouth outbreak.

Large crowds are expected to attend the traditional meet, according to the master of Middleton Hunt, Frank Houghton Brown, who said that while a number of hunts elsewhere in the country were opting to meet away from market towns and in quieter rural areas on Boxing Day, to avoid potential protestors, the Middleton will be maintaining its tradition of the 11am meet in the Market Place.

"It has been a very popular festive season attraction for generations in Malton," said Mr Brown.

However the hunt, which has not met since the disease outbreak started in mid-February, cannot hunt in its vast rural area, which stretches over an area 40 miles by 30 miles and almost to the Bridlington coastline, because North Yorkshire is still officially designated as a county "at risk" of the disease.

"As yet this is not a clean county and we don't know when it will be," he said.

But the hunt and many farmers and landowners are keen to get back on the sporting trail because fox numbers have risen significantly in Ryedale in recent months.

While the Middleton's territory stretches into East Yorkshire, because its kennels are in North Yorkshire, it cannot legally cross the county boundary although East Yorkshire is an unaffected area, said Mr Brown.

As a result, the hunt, which would normally send a pack of hounds and riders to Driffield, has had to cancel that meet for bio-security reasons to rule out any threat of the disease being spread into East Yorkshire.

However the hunt expects to visit the old people's home in Pickering Road, Malton and the Royal Oak pub at old Malton as usual on Boxing Day after the meet in Malton Market Place.