Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2022 i The Field

WHEN one thinks of a local councillor, it is easy to conjure up the image of a busybody, readily attending endless meetings about potholes, litter and public lavatories. It would be easy to give their activity little notice, particularly when the everyday drama of Westminster dominates the news. While it is true that many seek local office for the sole good of their community, it would be naive to assume their interests are limited exclusively to allotment allocation. Rather, council chambers can be hotbeds for radicals, providing a stage for eccentrics to champion their own causes, irrespective of how niche they are. In the 1980s, left-wing urban councils climbed over one another to declare themselves ‘nuclear-free zones’, regardless of the fact that nothing resembling a nuclear reactor had ever been…

The world’s largest grouse species could be lost from Scotland’s forests unless urgent action is taken to improve chick survival rates, the GWCT has warned. The capercaillie is confined to the Scottish Highlands in the UK. Sharp declines are occurring because fewer chicks hatch and survive in Scotland than elsewhere in its range. Data from the GWCT’s latest brood survey confirmed that the decline is continuing, with only 300 to 400 birds left. Capercaillie breed better in years when June weather is dry and warm, and in forests where predators, such as carrion crows and pine martens, are fewer. This year, despite good weather, the survey found only 0.4 chicks fledged per female, below the 0.6 chicks needed to maintain numbers. This was the fifth consecutive year when insufficient chicks…

Write to: The Editor, The Field, Future Publishing PLC, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London, W2 6JR Email: field.secretary@futurenet.com LETTERS MAY BE EDITED FOR CLARITY OR SPACE BEST GUN FOR GROUSE The Sporting Chance ‘Size isn’t everything’ cartoon [October issue] brought back memories of the many discussions and arguments about barrel lengths, chokes, shot and load size, and all the rest of the jiggery-pokery appended to game shooting. My sporting days are coming to an end; having spent many happy times on the fields, moors and high tops, I am ready to vacate my peg to the young and hope they have as much enjoyment and pleasure out there as I have had. In passing, I tender the following advice. First, the most expensive guns or clothes may interest but rarely impress…

LIMEKILN HOUSE EAST CHALDON, WAREHAM, DORSET This property is up a farm road with a bridleway from the house that leads through the valley down to the Jurassic Coast at Durdle Door. Limekiln House, originally part of the Weld estate and extended over the years, has five bedrooms and is a short walk from the village of East Chaldon. The plot is just under an acre, with a patio area and a cedar summerhouse. Agent: Domvs Tel: 01929 555300 Offers over £1.25 million HAY PLACE BINSTED, ALTON, HAMPSHIRE At the heart of this estate within the South Downs National Park is a Victorian brick-and-stone eight-bedroom house. There is a range of Victorian agricultural buildings in a courtyard. Currently a car port, a shoot room and a large barn for entertaining,…

THE only ‘selfie with a celeb’ I have ever taken wasn’t on my own behalf. It was for my horse. One hunting day, the field was due to change horses at the yard at which I kept her, and for a few hours, the stable next to her was occupied by Denman. I knew that if Molly – a mare with a fairly high opinion of herself – was capable, she wouldn’t miss the opportunity of snapping herself with the 2008 Cheltenham Gold Cup hero. A proper celeb, if ever there was one. Unfortunately for poor Molly, the handsome liver chestnut trotted off with Charlotte Alexander aboard at second horses without a backward glance, accustomed to being as famous in his post-racing career on the hunting field as he was…

Is your freezer already filling with the fruits of another memorable sporting foray? At least these days there’s no excuse to feel trapped in a culinary rut. The Countryside Alliance’s Game to Eat campaign and, of course, The Field’s own recipe pages, have saved countless lives from the trauma of high, dry roast pheasant and non-descript stews. But what about that wine rut? In an era blessed with delicious, distinctive wines from all over the world, the shooting community can prove notoriously conservative. Of course, if your cellar is packed with serious, mature Burgundy and claret, then make the most of such heady fortune. But if the soaring price of the best stuff provokes a queasy sensation, then don’t simply default to an underwhelming Bourgogne Rouge. Not only is there…

I can’t exactly claim to have been brought up in a cold house. I realise that this is a distinctly non-U admission, so I need to clarify things a little. I grew up in London with parents whose differing views about what to do with a thermostat were so entrenched it took them to the brink of divorce. Instead of calling it quits, however, they healthily settled on separate bedrooms. My Scotch father’s was unheated, year round, and he kept the windows open. He employed the same policy in his study, where the only source of warmth was a bottle of sherry. My mother likes the house heated, year round. It’s as if she’s conducting some sort of sick science experiment to test the expiration limits of her fellow inhabitants.…

If you were in the crowd for Trooping the Colour in June, you might have spotted a man wearing a bowler hat. That man was most likely the artist Freddy Paske, soaking up the scene, pencil in hand. Paske, a former captain in the Light Dragoons, was the official artist-in-residence for the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee this year. We meet at his Oxfordshire studio, where he lives with his wife and their spaniel, Kimbo, and where over coffee he explains how this most regal of residencies emerged. “It grew from Russell Bond [a Major in the Life Guards] asking if I wanted to be the Household Cavalry’s resident artist for the Jubilee,” says Paske. “It made me think about the other ceremonial horses – I thought we should capture all…

IT IS three-quarters of a century since Alfred Munnings called for artists to paint a sky that looked like a sky, yet life still remains difficult for equestrian painters who want to make figurative work. Admiring the seeming ease of Charles Church’s painterly brushstrokes, you might imagine a straightforward transition from art school to professional artist. This was definitely not the case, as Church admits: “It was a massive struggle in the early days because I couldn’t get any training. The tutors at that time had all been at art school in the 1960s, when life drawing was basically banned, so they couldn’t draw from life themselves, much less teach it.” Many contemporary sporting artists recall the same issue. Church reflects: “I used to get worked up about style and…

THIS month’s test focuses on a Beretta 694 Sport 31 – distinguished by its uncommon 31in barrels – imported and distributed by GMK of Fareham. It is designed as a superior clay-breaking machine and is a good weight for that purpose at 8lb 7oz. It could, however, be pressed into service on high birds or wildfowl as well. It is, arguably, not too heavy for the field if heavy loads are being contemplated. The trend in the competition world is for heavier and longer guns. Club Shots tend to use 30in or 32in barrels. Most of the top performers opt for 32in now (some even 34in). In terms of weight, 8lb to 9lb seems the modern norm. Game guns have become heavier and longer-barrelled too. The 25in, 26in, 27in or…

AS far as the Guns are concerned, the perfect shoot lunch should be delicious, hearty and speedily served precisely at any time between late morning and 4pm – all achievable with some careful menu planning. Pies are a good choice; they are the ultimate comfort food and will stay hot without spoiling. For such occasions, I tend to make the filling on the loose side as there is a chance that the cooked pies will have to wait before being eaten and then sit on a hot plate, which can dry them out. Stews are ideal as they are easy to keep warm and don’t mind a little reheating if needed. As they are a complete meal, they are also simple and quick to serve. Alternatively, slightly lighter but still…

INSTAGRAM A SPORTING QUESTION The Field readers on Instagram were posed the question: ‘Which type of shooting do you find the hardest? Walked-up or driven?’ The answers were varied; the majority found rough shooting the most difficult, with the varying types of shots that are presented to you on a single day. However, one reader summed it up best: “Every day has its challenges.” FACEBOOK SIDING WITH TRADITION An article by Michael Yardley, The Field’s gun reviewer, reflected that despite more Guns choosing over-and-unders, there are many who still cherish the ‘traditional’ option. According to one reader, there are now incredible deals to be had with quality side-by-sides at auction, picking up a gun himself for £600 that was worth £5,000. FIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIA INSTAGRAM @thefieldmagazine FACEBOOK The…

Le Chameau has raised more than £16,500 for The Prince’s Countryside Fund (TPCF) thanks to its Imperfects initiative of donating 10% of any boot sale. Over the past decade, TPCF has invested over £10.5 million in more than 530 projects across the UK that improve service provision in rural areas, support farming businesses and rural enterprises, and provide training opportunities for young people. The charity has helped over 1,000 farming families to take charge of their business through its Farm Resilience Programme and working with the Farm Support Group Initiative. Keith Halstead, executive director of TCPF, said: “Thanks to Le Chameau’s support, TPCF will be able to empower more family farmers and rural communities to create a sustainable future for themselves, the countryside and our whole nation.”…

THE World Cup is not the place for ‘Cupsets’. Brazil have won the tournament five times, Germany and Italy four, France, Argentina and Uruguay twice, and England and Spain once. Those teams are the flag-bearers of international football. There are no glaring omissions from the list, thanks to Spain finally getting their hands on the trophy in 2010. Portugal and The Netherlands can count themselves unlucky not to have made it yet, but their day will come. International football, it seems, is a favourites game. This is highlighted by the fact that Italy’s 2006 heroes had the biggest pre-tournament odds of any World Cup-winning team: 10/1. With 21 World Cups in the books, that is quite something. This winter, it’s overwhelmingly likely that we will see one of those eight…

How to shoot high birds, and how to estimate their range and the required forward allowance, is a topic of perennial interest to shooting sportsmen. Reaching out at range with a shotgun is a fascinating business. Let’s start with the 10 basic tenets that enable you to shoot high birds and judge range accordingly. 1 A GUN THAT FITS WELL A low comb is a particular disaster for high work. As you raise a low-combed gun above 45 degrees with normal cheek pressure, you may lose sight of the bead, causing the wrong eye to take over and leading to inexplicable misses to one side. Too long a stock may impede your swing too (as will clothing that is too tight or bulky). 2 ENOUGH GUN TO DO THE JOB…

“I stopped counting at 30,” said a grinning Zoe Ireland, wiping mud from her face. She wasn’t talking about birthdays but hedges, and was close to having to shout over the din in the Tap & Run. The pub, nestled in the village of Upper Broughton, near Melton Mowbray, was packed, the atmosphere heady with the high spirits of the legion of ladies who had just taken part in the Quorn Hunt’s ladies’ day. A few hours earlier, the pub also thronged as the hunt’s joint secretaries, Naomi Sarfaty-Wells and Nicola Housley, welcomed some of the 200-plus game girls booked in for the day. Nervous energy had filled the pub, generated by excitement in some quarters and a degree of trepidation in others. This frisson was fuelled with close to…

On the night of 16 November 1941, 65 paratroopers exited their aircraft over the Libyan Desert with a mission to raid enemy airfields in support of the Eighth Army’s imminent offensive – Operation Crusader. Ever-sceptical army banter refers to this as “jumping out of perfectly serviceable aeroplanes”, but these aircraft were barely serviceable for parachuting. To add to the servicemen’s woes, this was also their first night jump. That, however, proved to be merely the start of their problems, for they had jumped into the “most spectacular thunderstorm in living memory”. Several didn’t survive and those who did were spread out and ‘geographically embarrassed’. Unbelievably, matters took a further turn for the worse, with the one group that did reach their objective being wiped out by the supposed second-line troops…

EVEN A Sorcerer’s constantly learning Auction Apprentice occasionally feels the urge to break free and try to land a cunning buy without the prior blessing of his usually consulted, and always heeded, Master. Much, I suppose, as a child longs to outgrow its parent. And so it was that I sent ‘expert Nick’ an email linking him to a few of my recent, secret, auction bids with the heading: “Am I going mad?” Obviously, I was hoping for the answer: “No. Clever you.” Fat chance. After listing what I had failed to spot, he concluded by asking whether boredom was interfering with my critical faculties. He must have been a psychiatrist in an earlier life as, sadly, he’s bang on the money. I need a new project. My war memoir,…

I HAVE a friend who keeps a meticulous record of all the birds his dogs – three labradors and a springer – pick up each season. (He keeps a clicker in his pocket to record the daily tally.) He works on two commercial shoots and generally picks up five days a fortnight throughout the pheasant season. Last season his tally was a whopping 2,355 pheasants. Impressive though this is, I’m sure there are a number of pickers-up whose dogs retrieve more. I asked him whether his dogs ever get bored with retrieving pheasants. His answer was interesting, as he assured me that his labradors will cheerfully pick up pheasant after pheasant without showing any significant loss of enthusiasm. His springer, on the other hand, does get bored with straightforward retrieves,…

IT has become a post-harvest ritual: a long drive round the boundary of the farm, as an act of ‘closure’. We joke that it’s a last-minute check for bits of crop that have escaped the combine, but many years ago there was a two-acre corner that was forgotten. The Polaris Ranger XP 1000 arrived just in time for this job and on the first misty morning of August (an unusually early finish this year, of course), I settled down in the cab, preparing for the solemn ceremony. And a smart cab my test machine had, too. Proper doors and windows, front and rear screen. All very civilised, of course, but somehow losing the wind-in-your-hair concept that makes hooning round the fields in a UTV such fun. Negotiating the Ranger out…

Parliamentarians gathered in the House of Commons on 6 September to mark the 20th anniversary of the Liberty & Livelihood March. Representatives from all parties came together to show their support for the rural way of life while reflecting on the march, which remains one of the biggest civil liberties demonstrations in British history. In a speech, Lord Herbert, chairman of the Countryside Alliance, said: “The Alliance was set up in the wake of that march, by brilliant people, simply to give the countryside a voice. There was a strong feeling… that the views of those who live in the countryside were being dismissed. After hundreds of thousands of people had marched on the streets of Westminster, no one could say we were a small voice.” Greg Smith, MP for…

An attempt to ban trail hunting on land owned by Cornwall Council has failed following a successful campaign by local hunts and the Countryside Alliance. It comes following the long-awaited publication of a formal response from the leader of the council to organisers of a petition to have trail hunting banned. In January, a petition organised by Action Against Foxhunting was submitted to Cornwall councillors. The petition called for a ban on trail hunting across council-owned land and amassed a supposed 10,000 signatures. However, many of the signatures had no residency details. Following a consultation process, the leader of the council recommended that the council will continue to permit council farm tenants to decide whether or not to permit trail hunting across their agricultural holding. The Conservative councillor for Liskeard…

Adlington Hall is a Grade I-listed house with a rich architectural history. It has a distinctive Tudor façade to the east and an imposing Georgian front to the south. The estate includes six farms, 22 houses and cottages, and extends to 1,922 acres – a mix of farmland and woodland – with the River Dean running through the estate. Adlington Hall has allocated land for habit enhancements in relation to biodiversity net gain and is one of the first landowners to pioneer such an approach. The landscaped parkland was once a medieval deer park. There is a water garden, a rose garden and pleasure gardens, with most of the grounds laid to lawn and pasture. The estate is for sale as a whole or in lots. Agents: Savills and Mark…

As one Scottish fishing season ends, both fishers and estates immediately think of the next. Flies are tied, dreams are dreamt and the process of booking and securing weeks begins. From the fisher’s perspective, it can be a challenging task to choose and secure fishing as, while it might be a little surprising, demand far outweighs supply for those places perceived as delivering ‘consistent’ fishing. Some beats and rivers have years-long waiting lists and an early week is often the only option. Outwith this handful of ‘names’, however, there is opportunity. Scotland remains a magical destination that can offer superlative sport, where lodges can accomodate six or 20, and beats fish from two to six rods. There are rocky and wild rivers with no huts where you will cover miles…

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It’s at night, when temperatures drop even further, that the denizens of cold houses are most tested. One can fend off the cold during the day fairly easily, with an extra jumper or a few star jumps. But at night, the cold penetrates in a different way. Solicitor Ruth de Maupeou has vivid memories of climbing into bed and “not being quite sure if the sheets were actually wet or just really, really cold”. This level of cold requires resourcefulness. Forget the seductive lingerie; this is the time for flannel pyjamas and, quite probably, hats, scarves, gloves, rugs and dogs. Indeed, the youngest Langford child, Raphael, “acquired a pair of ear mufflers quite soon after [the family] moved into Slogarie [in Dumfries], and insisted on keeping them on in bed…

WILD TURKEY MELEAGRIS GALLOPAVO Bilderatlas, 1860-64, Uncredited Native to North America, the wild turkey is the heaviest member of the Galliformes. They are the same species as the domesticated turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), yet in the wild these birds are capable of flight. Despite this they are reluctant flyers, and by the early 1900s, the turkey population of North America had plummeted through over-hunting. While the bird may be North American, its name is said to have come from Britain, where one theory suggests that these birds had originally been imported from merchants in Turkey.…

DURING the 19th century, gunmakers experimented with many different gun designs. Some of these were designed to be carried as disguised weapons, not an unknown practice in the Victorian era, when self-defence was taken seriously. This example stands out as one of the most unusual and thoroughly disguised weapons. This purse or pocketbook revolver was patented by a German, Oscar Frankenau of Nuremberg. The patent registered in the USA in November 1877 describes it as a “Combination Pocket-Book and Revolver”. The British patent was registered slightly earlier, in September 1877, and describes it as a “Revolver Purse”. The actual patentee working on behalf of Frankenau was F Wirth, a specialist patent solicitor based in Frankfurt am Main. The patent ceased to provide protection in September 1880. Although patented in Britain…

YOU won’t miss it: rows of candy-stripe umbrellas standing as a welcoming party on the junction where this former wool merchant’s manor sits in the Oxfordshire village of Clanfield. This might not be strictly storybook-worthy Cotswold territory – the 17th-century Double Red Duke is nestled just on the edge of those honeypot villages – but where you’ve landed still feels like a Londoner’s country Mecca. Suspiciously clean 4x4s fill the car park, equally sparkly Hunters line the porch and everything inside is less shabby and incredibly chic. But here’s the thing: the power of a break away from dog hair and piles of waiting-to-be-cleaned tack shouldn’t be scoffed at. Here is the perfect launching pad for a sporting fix or an indulgent pit stop as you criss-cross the country. An…

MY shooting career started not with a gun, but with a beating stick. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of a family shoot in Hampshire; the day was run by my great uncle Bill and you could always tell where he was, especially behind a hedge, with the train-like puffs of smoke emerging from his pipe. I still love the smell of Clan tobacco. During my early shooting years, my champions were two great countrymen; my father and Uncle Bill. This shoot was not known for its large bags. It was more of an armed walk, and it was huge fun. There was always much cheering from the squadron of family beaters if anything appeared – I think the largest bag was four pheasants, one pigeon and a squirrel.…