Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2016 i The Field

“‘Since the mid 1990s, we have helped more than 100 charities raise in excess of £24m’” THIS year, the Royal Berkshire Shooting School (RBSS) is celebrating its 25th anniversary. Back in 1991, 31-year-old Dylan Williams (pictured) took on the ground and then spent 18 months working with local planners. “It was incredibly hard work to get the shooting school up and running but we got there in the end, even with 18% interest rates.” Together with instructors Edward Watson, Craig Scott and Robert Cross, Williams set out to attract a new breed of game-shooter, someone who had come to the sport late but wanted to learn to shoot properly. “Our average age was just 27 years old so we weren’t a threat to any of our clients, who were all…

A revolutionary, self-resetting rat and stoat trap, developed by industrial designers in New Zealand, is now available in the UK. The Goodnature A24 trap is gas-powered and has a long-life lure that attracts the target species. As the rat, for example, enters, it sets off a trigger and is struck in the head by a piston, killed instantly and dropped from the trap. The trap will then reset itself, up to 24 times per CO2 canister. As there is no poison involved, there is no risk of harm to dogs or cats that scavenge the dead rodents. The trap does not have to be checked daily. “The whole idea is it is toxin free, humane and makes trapping easy. It’s not just a change, it’s a revolution,” said Stu Barr…

14 LAND ROVER BURGHLEY HORSE TRIALS Stamford, Lincolnshire. Tel 01780 752131; www.burghley-horse.co.uk 24 CHATSWORTH COUNTRY FAIR Chatsworth, Bakewell, Derbyshire. Tel 01328 821821; chatsworthcountryfair.co.uk 8-11 HERITAGE OPEN DAYS Free entry to 5,000 properties in England. Visit www.heritageopendays.org.uk 10-11 SANDRINGHAM GAME & COUNTRY FAIR Sandringham Park, Norfolk. Tel 01283 820548; livingheritagecountryshows.com 11 FRAMPTON COUNTRY FAIR Frampton on Severn; framptoncountryfair.co.uk 11 HAMPSHIRE COUNTRY SPORTS DAY Tichborne Park, Alresford, Hampshire; www.hampshirecountrysportsday.co.uk 13-18 LAPADA ART & ANTIQUES FAIR Berkeley Square, London W1. Tel: 020 7823 3511; lapadalondon.com 15-18 KILCHOMAN UK SALTWATER FLY FISHING FESTIVAL St Mawes, Cornwall (for The Field trophy). Tel: 01326 279278; www.saltwaterfl yfi shinguk.com/festival 17-18 MIDLAND GAME FAIR Weston Park, Shropshire. Tel 01889 563232; www.midlandgamefair.co.uk 17-2 OCT SOMERSET OPEN STUDIOS More than 200 studios and gardens to visit throughout the…

THE university shooters of Oxford and Cambridge battled it out at this year’s Varsity Match on 23 April for The Field Cup. The event, revived in 2011, was sponsored this year for the first time by Champagne Pol Roger. Tension was high and temperatures low as the contestants arrived at the Oxfordshire Shooting School, however, hot tea and bacon sandwiches soon had everyone warmed up and raring to go. The Varsity Match is a 100-bird English Sporting competition. Each university fields three squads – Men’s Blues; Men’s Golds; and Women’s Blues – all shooting the same layout. The Cambridge Men’s Blues accrued an early lead, with solid performances from returning shooters, but Oxford soon settled and, at the halfway mark, scores were neck and neck. A Cambridge near-wipeout on a…

“Not many sports allow you to compete with world champions and gold medallists” IT’S extraordinary shooting with Hamilton and Murray or, rather, their equivalents in the field. Not many sports allow you to compete with world champions and Olympic gold medallists but on moor and covertside it’s almost a routine privilege, many of our finest clay-pigeon shots being solid countrymen with a passion for game. We middle-rank shots never truly compete, of course, on live quarry and neither do the greats. We adhere to a centuries-old code that frowns on over-aggression lest it corrupts into greed. But we all want to do our best and for the real artists of the gun, that verges on the poetic. And nowhere stages a performance better than a grousemoor. I have watched as…

JEAN-PIERRE BAILLY 62, engraver He works with Gwenda Lieben, the only woman in the workshop. Bailly joined FN Herstal in 1980 after his studies at Léon Mignon engraving school (Liège). GWENDA LIEBEN 36, engraver Like Bailly, she works both on the B25 and the B15. She has also studied at Léon Mignon. BERNARD CAJOT 57, actioner and finisher Joined FN Herstal in 1978. VINCENT HODY 37, stocker Studied in Verviers, a city close to Liège. NICOLAS YANS 28 , bluing and chequering Joined Browning in 2007 after his studies at Léon Mignon. In charge of barrel bluing and stock chequering. JEAN-FRANÇOIS PANZA 37, barreller Joined Browning in 1999 after his studies at Léon Mignon.…

Published 1849-1861 JOHN Gould began his working life as a taxidermist and went on to be appointed curator and preserver to the Museum of the Zoological Society of London. The Monograph was his eighth bird title but became his magnum opus. Gould was enthralled with hummingbirds, quietly collecting them for some years and naming new species in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. He named the species shown Eugenia imperatrix in honour of Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III and Empress of France. Two males and a female are depicted.…

TO hell with Brexit, Nexit and Frexit, I hear you say. What we really want to know is how the complete disruption of politics, as we have known it for decades, has affected, and will affect, auction prices. At the top end of the London market it was plus ça change, with a number of auction records broken in the fortnight after Brexit: foreign dealers and collectors in particular benefiting from the “cheap” pound. Although, let’s make two things clear: first, the rich are rich anyway and rarely suffer from the financial worries that assail we lesser mortals; secondly, even with the “collapse” of the pound, we are back to roughly where we were in 2014 against the Euro and way better than 2010, when the pound was near parity…

A FUNNY thing happened the other night. I had a South African Pinotage that I actually enjoyed. By which I mean I really, really enjoyed it. I was taken aback because hitherto Pinotage has been a grape that I’ve gone a long way to avoid, just as I do a bore at a party or a drunk on a train. Indeed, there are few wines I dislike more except perhaps that ghastly, vinous bubblegum, Blush Zinfandel, from California. Anyway, from the Springfontein wine estate (see Six of the Best) near Stanford in the Walker Bay area of the Western Cape, this particular Pinotage was lusciously ripe, succulent, fruity, soft and smooth with hints of vanilla and a long, savoury finish. Best of all, it had none of that typical burned-rubber…

NATIONAL FISH VOTE Brown trout gained the highest number of the more than 7,000 votes cast (21%), beating the stickleback (16%) and tench (13%). GOLDEN PLOVER AWARD 2016 The winner was the Hopes Estate in East Lothian, praised by judges for successfully balancing grouse and sheep on the moor. APPRENTICE GAMEKEEPERS A scheme for new underkeepers proposed by the CA has been approved by the Department of Business, Industry and Skills. GAME BIRD 2016 AWARD Keeper’s wife Sally Elliot won the award for her work on the Tullybeagle estate. POTHECARY GIN Made in Dorset by Lukasz Dwornik and Martin Jennings, it has won double gold at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.…

LEAD: THE LONG GAME Victory has a thousand fathers, while defeat is an orphan. So it remains to be seen how the Lead Ammunition Group (LAG) unravels in the wake of Defra’s long-awaited decision not to ban lead ammunition. For now, it should reassure readers of The Field that government has cut a swathe through the hype and hysteria. Not only can we still shoot with lead, we continue to be trusted to eat game shot with lead. Rejoice, the vocal, anti-shooting rabble-rousers have been put back in their box. However, when our whoops and back-slapping wane, focus should return to the long game. Right now, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) considers the wording of a motion to encourage the world’s thinkers and policy-makers to impose…

“I watched the hounds like an embarrassing aged aunt, doting and pointing out favourites” SMELL is a peculiar thing. The slightest, unlikeliest whiff can conjure up all sorts of memories. If my life were as romantic as I would wish, I’d say I was strolling through Richmond Park when, catching the scent of sweet meadow grass, I was reminded of a youthful countryside tryst. Sadly, it isn’t, and, in reality, it was as I walked my neighbour’s puggle past a busy bus-stop in Finsbury Park and he relieved himself in front of an attentive audience that I had a flashback. Dog poo isn’t a smell many think upon fondly. Let’s face it, poop-a-scooping generally lacks the warm sentimentally of hay baling or warm rain on pavements. The most vivid muck-related…

ON Belle Isle, County Fermanagh, on a wooded hill overlooking Lough Erne, are ranks of headstones in a dogs’ graveyard, to which were emotionally assigned (if the tear-stained gamebooks for 100 years ago are an indication) the Duke of Abercorn’s hunting and shooting dogs. It is a moving place. As the 2015/16 season ended, I could not help but reflect on what fate many in the shooting fraternity would wish upon the dogs currently worked by guns. Working peg dogs, in spite of the increasing numbers being trained and sold, are, in practice, becoming a rare sight. So are their owners. Nowadays, guns in a line with their own retrievers are at best indulged and at worst vilified. The habit of taking a dog to a shoot is being lost.…

THE main tributary of the Exe, the Barle, rises on Exmoor at Pinkery Pond and tumbles enthusiastically down through the stunningly beautiful and verdant Barle valley, under the hunting bridge and through well-known pools such as Hinds Pit and Bend Pool, down under what is probably (and justifiably) the most photographed clapper bridge anywhere, Tarr Steps, and on towards Dulverton. This is where I learned to fish and it is, without question, one of the most lovely places to do so on the planet. Salmon are abundant here in August and September, given some decent rain to swell the normally gin-clear river to a chocolate-brown torrent for a few hours, then to drop and dilute to that wonderful strong-tea-with-just-a-tiny-drop-of-milk colour that assuredly signals a run of salmon up from the…

ON 5 May 1681, diarist John Evelyn dined with Sir Christopher Wren. Wren, Evelyn noted, was not only engaged in rebuilding St Paul’s Cathedral but “was in hand with the building of 50 Parish Churches”. The churches in question all lay within the City of London. Unsurprisingly, Evelyn was moved to comment: “a wonderful genius had this incomparable person”. Eighty-seven City churches were destroyed in the Great Fire of London, 350 years ago. Statutes had required that each church contain fire-fighting equipment: ladders, leathern buckets, iron fire-hooks and axes; in almost every case, provision had been neglected. Through the crowded streets, the mighty conflagration swept. On 3 September, surgeon Thomas Middleton saw flames burst from the steeple of the church of St Laurence Pountney; such was the impact of the…

BEE AWARE Q How far from a footpath can I keep a beehive? SSF, Bedfordshire A Ideally, a beehive should be placed in an appropriate position at a minimum of eight metres from the nearest footpath or bridleway, with a hedge, fence or wall acting as a barrier between the public and the hives. If the barrier is reasonably low, the distance from the footpath should be increased to a minimum of 15 metres. Before erecting a beehive it might be useful to contact your local Beekeepers Association member at bbka.org.uk for advice. A PLUM JOB Q I was given some plums last year, more due this year; apparently they are Bullace and make a good hip-flask filler. Is that correct and, if so, how do I make such a…

IN the collections of the Royal Armouries is one of the largest game rifles made in Britain, in this case a four-bore double rifle by the great London gunmakers Holland & Holland (H&H). The rifle is extraordinary in its own way, especially for its size and weight, but the owner was as interesting. It is also rare to find a rifle, or indeed any firearm, that has a romantic story attached to it, as this does. This story concerns a young man in love, Ewart Scott Grogan, one of the most swashbuckling and colourful figures of African colonial history, and his pursuit of a young women, Gertrude Watt. A gentleman adventurer in the Elizabethan tradition, born in 1874 and one of 21 children of William Grogan, the surveyor-general of the…

SMOKING FOOD AT HOME WITH SMOKY JO by Jo Hampson with Georgina Perkins Quiller, £13 WHEN your moniker is Smoky Jo, readers keen to turn trout into a taste sensation can be confident they have picked up the right book. Jo Hampson and Georgina Perkins guide the reader through this art (definitely an art, rather than a science), from the mechanics of smoking and how to smoke food (starting with brining and basics) to types of smoker. The list of herbs and spices to use with different meats is useful, as is the smoking guide for different foods. It is startling to realise it’s not just the usual suspects that make for the tastiest results. You can attend a smoking course with Smoky Jo in Cumbria, if you can snag…

LEAD SHOT RULING The Government will not ban the use of lead shot in light of the Lead Ammunition Group’s report, which found no scientific evidence to justify a ban. The Food Standards Agency is not changing its advice on the consumption of lead-shot game. FISHERIES AUCTION Salmon & Trout Conservation UK’s online auction to raise money to help protect salmon, trout and other aquatic wildlife will open on 12 September and closes at midnight on 16 October. To register, go to www.salmon-trout.org TOP PLOUGHMEN The 63rd World Ploughing contest is being held at Crockey Hill, near York, on 10-11 September – the first time it’s been held in the UK for 16 years. The contest is being staged straight after the British National Ploughing Championships (8-9 September). To contact…

MOST VIEWED Guns for less than £5,000 We all love exquisite engraving and exhibition walnut but Fielders need workhorses that always deliver. Michael Yardley’s pick of the best 10 guns for under £5,000 is becoming the definitive shotgun guide for the season. #THEFIELDMAGAZINE Spotted on the moors This great picture of a curlew was posted by Tony Raine on Facebook. “This was taken on the road from Osmotherley to Hawnby on the North York Moors. There seems to be a healthy population of curlews on the moors this year and you can definitely see and hear them on an evening.” @sportingandcountryimages TALKING POINT Best for bunnies There’s nothing better than spending the long summer evenings bagging some bunnies – but what to take with you into the field? Fielders offered…

VELVET HOUSE COAT FAVOURBROOK Swathe yourself in black velvet. Dapper and decadent. Price £1,190 Tel 020 7493 5060 www .favourbrook.com OLVERUM HOUSE OF FRASER After 83 years, still the best choice for tired muscles. Price from £23.50 Tel 0345 602 1073 www .houseoffraser.co.uk HINE BONNEUIL 2006 POL ROGER PORTFOLIO Single estate Grande Champagne Cognac. Charming. Price £74 Tel 01892 888376 www .masterofmalt.com CUBAN SELECTION PIRAMIDES, JJ FOX To console when contemplating the one that got away. Price £144.50 Tel 020 7930 3787 www .jjfox.co.uk ALBERT SLIPPER GUNN LINE The cabaret skeleton knows how to party. Price £215 Tel 07789 961782 www .gunnline.co.uk THE FIELD MAGAZINE SUMMER SALE Save up to 39% and receive a £5 Marks & Spencer giftcard. Price from £18 Tel 0330 333 1113 www .thefi…

“Since the 1950s, each year has seen fierce UK inter-club rivalry to claim The Field Trophy” NAME a sport at which someone in their late forties can consistently beat a 20-year-old at the highest level; experience can outmanoeuvre youthful vigour; and battles are often waged against the backdrop of some of Britain’s most historic houses. Eventing springs to mind but for a steadily growing band of obsessives the answer is “real tennis”. Many people will have stumbled across this quirky, intriguing game, perhaps while on the tourist trail at Hampton Court, as prospective parents around Canford School in Dorset or maybe even taking a wrong turn after a good picnic at Lord’s. What few realise as they peer into this cloistered world of tambours, grills and dedans, embellished with antiquated…

A HUMBLE thumbstick goes with me to every moor, covert and, indeed, on every dog walk. I am no longer sure whether I carry it for moral or physical support; it is simply part of my sporting fixtures and fittings in rain and sun, on heather, sand and stubble. It swishes the air and grass idly on strolls, tests the depth of the briny on Devon beaches, thrusts back brambles in the woods and pulls floundering figures out of streams. Some people like exotic specimens with ram’s horn handles or exquisitely carved leaping salmon and pheasant heads. For me, a stick is a tool, so it stays simple. Most shooting seasons I visit Stanage on the Welsh border, where Jonathan Coltman-Rogers’ peerless management includes a fine selection of sticks for…

EVERY now and then life throws us a curve ball, which we comprehensively miss. Sometimes it is a biggy, such as death or divorce – or, in the case of the England football team, the next game. My own Armageddon was a couple of years back when my wonderful wife died at the age of 56. After the initial devastation there was a period of retrenchment, reappraisal and then re-examination of my life. Specifically, was I to be a victim, eschew the risk of ever being so badly mauled again, or should I, in the words of the Jerome Kern song, “pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again”. It appears we are still in the woe and angst stage of the Brexit fallout. Though as someone who…