Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2016 i The Field

Te south-west corner of Lancashire is an area rich in English sporting history and, until recently, the battleground for two of our most celebrated sporting contests; Aintree continues to host the Grand National each April but the 2004 Hunting Act put paid to the Waterloo Cup, the blue riband of greyhound coursing, which was held at Altcar every February just a few miles north of the famous racecourse. I have not trod this hallowed ground for more than a decade but the eerie emptiness comes flooding back as I follow guns to their pegs for the first drive of the Christmas shoot on the 5,000-acre Altcar estate, the Viking name of which means “Marsh beside the River Alt”. The shoot lies within the Moss, a soggy black pancake of fertile…

Guns are heavier than they were a couple of generations ago, although standard game loads are lighter (1⅛oz/32g was the norm, now it’s 11/16oz/30g that sells best). Longer barrels, in particular 30in, are also increasingly popular in both 12- and 20-bores of all barrel configurations. Game guns have been influenced by the clay-shooting experience (as they once were by live pigeon-shooting). Best 12-bore side-by-sides are still made around the 6¾lb mark (and occasionally lighter) but most machine-made side-by-sides hit the scales at around 7lb though their barrel walls may typically be thicker than the bespoke guns of the vintage era. As far as mass-produced over-and-unders are concerned, the average field gun weighs, typically, around 7¼lb to 7½lb now (and the average clay gun around 8lb) in 12-bore but is a…

There’s an explosion of light from the Christmas altar frontal in Wells Cathedral, a modern piece of needlecraft dominated by a dazzling starburst. Thousands of candles line stone recesses or stand in golden ziggurats. The choir, in royal blue cassocks, continues a tradition begun in the first years of the 10th century, leading local worshippers in favourite paeans of praise to God, the rich hymnal of Christmas carols. For most of us, Christmas carols form an indelible memoryinourrollcall of Christmases past. In Britain’s great cathedrals, sung by choirs of lay clerks and boy and girl choristers, they achieve an exhilarating musicality that is among the defining joys of cathedral worship. At Wells, services on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning remind worshippers “that the coming of God was, extraordinarily, through the…

How much do any of us really know about the First World War? Survivors of that bloodiest of conflicts seldom spoke about their experiences, even to those closest to them, and it’s impossible to imagine that life on the Western Front was anything other than four years of hell. It certainly was for most soldiers but there were a few who still found beauty and inspiration in their surroundings, despite the horrors of death and destruction. Collingwood Ingram was one such man and his fascinating First World War leather-bound diaries provide a whole new insight into that most dreadful of wars. Ingram was born in October 1880 in London to a well-to-do family. By the time he was in his thirties, his year had fallen into a fixed cycle: foxhunting…

fairy is forever out to cause mischief, a chivalrous knight is often ideal husband material and a stepmother is never good news. We fear witches, trust talking animals and root for the beautiful princess. Mermaids, however, have never been a fairytale stereotype. They are as likely to fall in love with sailors as drown them. Some will bestow gifts and calm the seas, others will stir up a storm. Some are extraordinarily beautiful, with a singing voice to match, others are the stuff of nightmares. Mermaid legend, though fickle, is age-old. The earliest mermaid myth appeared in Assyria in 1000BC and tells the story of the goddess Atargatis, who fell in love with a human and accidentally killed him. In her guilt she flung herself into the ocean to become…

THE element I love most about Christmas feasting is not necessarily the main event (turkey for many people, for some reason) but all the extra treats and ingredients that get crammed into our cupboards and fridges around now. Rounds of stilton, layers of smoked salmon and whole baked hams or the excuse to make the luscious brunches, decadent dishes and after-dinner treats that I am giving you for this special festive issue. Wishing you all a very merry and feast-filled Christmas. VENISON CARPACCIO, CANDIED PECANS & CLEMENTINE SALAD WITH A SPICED MAPLE SyRUP & BALSAMIC DRESSING SERVES 2 AS A STARTER With these colours, fragrant spices and tastes, this is Christmas on a plate. STARTER 120g venison fillet, fridge cold 1 tsp finely chopped rosemary 1 dsp extra virgin olive…

“Using the Grant was a gratifying experience. It mashed successive clay targets without excess effort. Little was missed” THE new English 12-bore over-and-under made by Atkin Grant & Lang, carrying the Stephen Grant & Sons name, weighs in at 7lb 11oz (though it feels lighter when handled) and boasts 31in barrels, a rounded action bar, ornamental side-plates (with engraving designed and executed by well-known craftsman Keith Thomas) and a non-selective single-trigger. The RRP is £28,000, including VAT. This is a significant sum but a competitive price for a new over-and-under. The creation of any new gun is a major undertaking. The concept for the Grant began only a couple of years ago, the result of a collaboration between Matt Hunt of Atkin Grant & Lang – a man with great…

“While reflecting on the true meaning of Christmas, give thanks to good flavour, nutrition, biodiversity and the local rural community” THE beauty of Christmas: friends and family; food and drink – the perfect cocktail to rekindle the year’s big debates and seek respite and contemplation in Church, concluded with a hangover-busting family shoot or Boxing Day meet. In spite of all this, the farmers’ daily routine continues. Crop growth may be on hold and livestock housed but the entrepreneurial farmer seldom gets a break. For some, Christmas begins in July and crescendos in the bleak mid-winter. At Daylesford HQ, traditional Bronze turkeys arrive in summer once the lambing sheds have been cleaned out. The poults soon get bigger and bolder, venturing outdoors under the canopy of the purpose-planted trees –…

Together with a journalist colleague, I once hired a light aircraft to take aerial shots of Henley Regatta. We flew up and down the course and took a swing over Reading, which dismayed us, but then, as we cruised along the Thames and turned north, the scene below was utterly transformed. Thickly wooded hills with rolling green fields between stretched away as far as the eye could see, entirely unmarked by development. I realised that this glorious stretch of the Chilterns had been saved purely by the fact that it was all still in private hands. It was here that the Oxfordshire High Four shoot took place in January. As usual, the day was masterminded by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT), which had persuaded four estate owners to…

“It will take all of the things you need effortlessly – as well as all the things you don’t need but can’t live without” The brand-new Side by Side Weekender bag (RRP £4,495) from James Purdey & Sons will take all the things you need effortlessly – as well as all the things you don’t need but can’t live without. It is the perfect shooting companion, so don’t wait to see if Father Christmas took heed of your wish list – make a bid for the Purdey Side by Side bag today. To be in with a chance of winning the Purdey Side by Side Weekender bag, all you have to do is answer the following question. WHAT YEAR WAS PURDEY FOUNDED? To enter, visit www.thefield.co.uk/competitions/purdey  and answer…

There is something fabulous about Irish hunting. Whether it is the wilder, remoter countryside, the fearsome obstacles that you encounter, the “craic” that accompanies it or the fact that hounds can still hunt the fox and the hare legally, every visitor returns full of tales of audacious adventure. So imagine my delight when my wife gave me a hunting trip to Ireland for my 40th birthday. I was to hunt with three different packs on three consecutive days, and I could choose which ones to visit. I felt like a child in a sweetshop. During those three days I wanted to experience a true cross-section of Irish hunting, so I phoned my friend, Dermot Hanniffy, to get some advice on where to go. Hanniffy is a font of Irish hunting…

“The Scottish Cairngorms have yielded the most gem material” Look out over the Flow Country of Sutherland and you could be gazing at a diamond field hidden beneath the vast expanse of peat. One hundred and fifty years ago, an eminent Scottish mineralogist, Professor Matthew Forster Heddle, claimed to have found an alluvial diamond not far from Ben Hope, the most northerly Munro (946 metres), which commands a magnificent view over the largest area of blanket bog in Europe. His claim was never substantiated but in 1958 three more diamonds were found in southern Scotland, buried in a seam of graphite. The diamonds have since disappeared but contemporary accounts say they were hard enough to scratch quartz – a sign that the stones may indeed have been the hardest naturally…

“‘Regular hearing health tests will flag up any potential problems’” Every shooting sort knows the electric stillness that crackles over the peg before the first drive. “ Live on peg” is the call as guns emerge from the shoot bus, laughter and half heard jokes fading as they fan out to walk to the pegs or butts. Dogs are sat, guns unsheathed, cartridge belts filled and the silence crackles. The art of shooting is as much about staying alert as it is bum, belly, beak, bang. You may anticipate when the birds are coming, how they might fly and how many will show. But there is one element that can give you an edge - hearing them first. If you still want to catch the cry of the cock pheasant…

It is impossible to miss the significance of racing in Newmarket, or to overstate its importance. If you are up with the lark you can witness strings of thoroughbreds going about their business. Even today your commute might be delayed as traffic lights are turned to red by a lad on the lead horse pulling a lever – let there be no question about who holds sway here or in the surrounding countryside, dotted with more than a hundred studs. Newmarket’s royal and sporting credentials go back to James I, who built a palace that was further extended by Charles I; they both enjoyed the many pleasures of hunting and racing on the Heath but this resort of kings was to become the cradle of the true “sport of kings”…

I’VE been reflecting on the perils of being a smartypants and buying something splendid, somewhat cheaply, just because it is incomplete. My personal journey of pain and frustration started last year when I bought three-quarters of a good suit of South German, circa 1580, armour for £2,000, below its £2,500 lower estimate, at Thomas Del Mar. I felt smugger than I have in ages. All I then had to do, I reasoned, was buy a reasonably matching – period and style – helmet, arms and gloves and I’d have a full armour, something I’d hankered after since childhood. I should have paid more attention to the fact that, at the same sale, a put-together pair of Italian arms (no gloves) of a similar date shredded their £800 top estimate to…

“An interesting and prestigious rifle of both provenance and performance” WHEN extolling new technology in modern rifles I have sometimes been less than effusive about the historic Rigby .275. For this I must apologise and attempt to explain myself. A .275 Rigby was the rifle I used in my first job in the Highlands in the early 1980s. It was the estate rifle and had accounted for many deer over its long life. In those days, you stalked to 100 metres and the art of stalking was more highly valued than the act of shooting. I remember its 4x scope and curious mounting arrangement and recall that it grouped to about four inches. Nowadays, we place different values on the various aspects of a stalk that contribute to a humane…

“It’s a large, 4x4 hatchback with Dan Dare styling and a comforting sense of solidity” THE 450h is, according to Lexus, a “luxury hybrid SUV” but, after a week’s test, I was left thinking that that doesn’t tell the whole story. I’m not going to argue with the “luxury” bit: you can’t fault the quality of materials and workmanship, although the interior brown and over-bold pin-striping on the centre console wouldn’t have looked out of place in an Allegro brochure. As for the “hybrid” bit – well, it’s true that the 450h has the now-familiar electric motor/ petrol engine power system but if you’re buying into the concept to save the planet, you’ll be disappointed. True, you can pootle around the farm or go down to the village shop to…

“‘Anyhow, he tells me he wants this baboon stuffed for his gents with its fingers pointed in so he could use it as a toilet-roll holder’” WITH Christmas fast approaching I have been giving some serious consideration to Christmas presents, particularly in respect of my daughter. This is not just due to paternal love and devotion but, between ourselves, there was a small contretemps that ended up with her sore as a gumboil and not best pleased with Daddy. One of our more bohemian friends had a crazy birthday party at our castle, which, although huge fun, comprised 140 guests in various degrees of campness – many of whom turned out to have been our host’s lovers. I am advised that one of the highlights was my explosion with rage…

Saving Britain’s native turkey breeds New turkey breeding groups are being set up around the country, following the launch of a project to help preserve the gene pool of Britain’s 10 native turkey varieties, such as the Pied (pictured). Launched by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust (RBST), which is working with the Turkey Club United Kingdom and The Poultry Club of Great Britain, the project is running training days and giving grants for set-up costs to encourage more people to keep rare-breed turkeys. “We’re trying to get poultry breeders who aren’t turkey keepers trained to keep turkeys. We’re encouraging them to keep a single breed to avoid any problems with cross-breeding,” said the RBST’s Richard Broad. The first training day was run by Ian and Brenda Waterman at Heritage Turkeys…

The National Trust is hoping to raise £7.1 million by January to keep hundreds of historic objects belonging to Sir Winston Churchill at his home at Chartwell in Kent. Many of these possessions are on show in a new exhibition titled Child of the Commons, which can be seen at Chartwell until February. The 50 objects in the exhibition chart Churchill’s life, from a childhood spent idealising his politican father, through his early years as a constituency MP, his “crossing the floor” between Conservatives and Liberals and his career holding most of the major offices of state, including being Prime Minister twice. The “Keep Churchill at Chartwell” appeal launched on 5 September raised £667,400 in its first month. The NT is approaching charitable trusts and public bodies for further funding.…

1 WEEKENDER BAG BUFFALO HYDE Supple, elegant buffalo hide works hard in this tough weekend bag. Perfect flight carry-on, too. • Price £249 • Tel 07765 402631 • www.buffalo-hyde.com 2 ADVENT CALENDAR PRESTAT Count down the days to the Boxing Day meet with dark and milk chocolate blocks. • Price £22.50 • Tel 020 8961 8555 • www.prestat.co.uk 3 LOG TROLLEY THE WOODEE Keep yule logs to hand in willow this winter in this agile log transporter, made entirely in Herefordshire. • Price £395 • Tel 01981 550524 • www.thewoodee.com 4 BRACKEN JACKET DUBARRY Versatile and well-fitted ladies tweed with stand-up collar and Alcantara trim. Teflon coated. • Price £379 • Tel 01608 677622 • www.dubarry.com 5 TWEED BLOUSON HOUSE OF BRUAR Casual tweed to throw on off the field. In green or brown herringbone. Season staple. • Price £150 • Tel 0345 136…

This is a ring-fenced mixed farm set within the South Shropshire Hills AONB. The sale includes a five-bedroom farmhouse with potential for modernisation, traditional stone barns, livestock accommodation, grain storage and general-purpose farm buildings. The range of modern and traditional farm buildings is split over two farmsteads. There is also a derelict barn. The land, extending to 404 acres, includes arable and pasture land, as well as a bit of woodland. The farm is part of a wider shooting syndicate but the sporting lease ends in February 2017. This provides a good opportunity for new owners to establish their own shoot, making use of the rolling topography. Alternatively, it may be possible to negotiate with the existing agreement holder. New House Farm is 13 miles from Ludlow. Agents: Strutt &…

f imitation truly is the sincerest form of flattery, no gunmaker in the world should be more flattered than Holland & Holland, because no sidelock has been more widely copied over the past hundred years than the Holland & Holland Royal.” So said Michael McIntosh and David Trevallion in their slim volume Shotgun Technicana. “In terms of imitation, it’s fair to say that the Holland action is the most famous ever invented,” they continued. Surf firearm sites or leaf through gunmakers’ catalogues and you’ll find guns described as: “apatura automática estilo H H” (Grulla); “sistema Holland & Holland” (Piotti); “con batterie tipo H&H” (Bernardelli); “H&H assisted opening mechanism” (Arrieta); or “locks are made in house to the proven H&H design” (AA Brown); or “Apertura automática estilo H H (Armas Garbi).…

The Orange River flows from east to west as it makes its way across South Africa towards the Atlantic, running along the edge of the Kalahari Desert forming South Africa’s Northern border against Namibia. The combination of baking summer days, icy winter nights and an abundance of water makes local conditions ideal for vines and the riverbanks are dotted with grape farms. The success of these enterprises has meant that many landowners are now in a position to support the local environment and communities, returning the surrounding landscape to what it once looked like and reintroducing the herds of desert oryx, giraffe and eland that were previously prolific. The well-being of the leopard, too, that once plundered the livestock farms on this part of the Northern Cape, is now a…

The Christmas story begins with a cherub-faced angel and ends with three wise men. Every year, we mark this most famous of tales in the carols we sing, the nativity scenes we put out and by the decorations on our trees, yet few are aware of the full role angels play in our history or their pre-biblical origins. Like many of our Christmas traditions, angels are a mixture of Christianity, folklore and marketing. Our modern idea stems largely from the Old Testament, in which angels were essentially messengers from God, that being the literal definition of the Hebrew word malach. However, the concept predates Judaism, with heavenly messengers found in ancient Sumerian, Babylonian, Egyptian and Persian religions, as well as Greece, although they probably originated in their current form in…

Our taste for spicy food is nothing new. We Brits have been besotted by these aromatic ingredients since medieval times and flavours such as ginger, cinnamon and coriander are embedded in our tastes and recipes, from gingerbread and Christmas cake to pickles and kedgeree. Spices first appealed as exotic flavours from lands afar, originally coming from Arab traders through the spice centre of Venice. At this time, these rare seasonings were surrounded by mysterious tales. Cinnamon sticks, for example, were said to come from the nests of fierce birds who would attack the gatherers. The high value of spices sparked an era of exploration as countries sought to break the trade monopoly and get their own supplies. Sailors voyaged around the globe to find their own sources and make a…

RACING, Newmarket and Tattersalls are like the three legs of a stool, and 2016 is an anniversary for them all. Tattersalls is celebrating 250 years of auctions but it is hard to imagine that this business, synonymous with Newmarket and the best of bloodstock, began by auctioning hounds and the odd hunter in a swampy bit of Hyde Park. Tattersalls thrived, it says, “because of the company’s acknowledged integrity and as a result of Richard [Tatterall’s] fostering of the elite”. Both enduring strategies for success that saw this sometime wool-stapler, ostler and stud groom become the founder of today’s international business, offering 10,000 thoroughbred horses each year across 15 sales in Newmarket and Ireland. Old Tatts, as he was known, became wealthy through his business and the success, both racing…

2012 CHARTRON LA FLEUR (£10, Corney & Barrow) A fabulous, fleshy, juicy, mature Merlot/Cab claret. 2013 THE SOCIETY’S EXHIBITION CHIANTI CLASSICO (£11, The Wine Society) Versatile and approachable – and worth twice the price. 2013 STAATLICHE WEINBAUDOMANE OPPENHEIM RIESLING (£11, Yapp Bros) A really classy Riesling. 2013 CAVE DE LUGNY CRÉMANT DE BOURGOGNE MILLESIMÉ (£14, FromVineyardsDirect) A ridiculously fine fizz. DELAMAIN PALE & DRY XO PREMIER CRU DE COGNAC (£20 per 20cl, Waitrose Cellar) One of the great cognacs in a perfect stocking-filling size. GLENMORANGIE A MIDWINTER NIGHT’S DRAM (£40, Moet Hennessy Selection) A stunning, limited-edition malt.…

“My spaniels certainly wouldn’t be interested in collars studded with Swarovski crystals” DO you give your dog a Christmas present? Some 63% of Americans do and it’s probably a similar figure here, too. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if many working dogs miss out. I can’t recall any Boxing Day shoots or meets where I’ve spotted dogs sporting new collars, coats or leads, despite the fact that their owners are showing off pristine cartridge bags, hats or boots unwrapped the day before. I can’t recall ever giving my dogs presents. If I were able to ask them what they’d like, I’m sure the answer would be an unlimited supply of T-bone steaks. The way to a dog’s heart is via its stomach. They certainly wouldn’t be interested in collars studded…