IT'S EASY to forget that the horse was hugely important to many people well into the last century. In his 70's, the clothing pioneer and entrepreneur Thomas Burberry – known to his friends as 'Old Tom'– rode every day between his business in Basingstoke and his home in Hook. He only stopped after a serious fall. Horses were second nature to him: he had grown up on a family farm near Dorking in Surrey. His namesake father was steward to the Duke of Norfolk. In his early years in Basingstoke, he lived in a house call The Mount, in Bounty Road (now the Conservative Club), a substantial dwelling with stabling for six horses – as well as many bedrooms and several acres of land.