Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2020 i The Field

THOSE who recall the Countryside Alliance’s dogged defence of the use of lead shot when its former executive chairman sat on the Lead Ammunition Group (LAG) might wonder why it and other bodies representing shooting have now changed their minds and issued a joint statement calling for the use of lead shot on quarry to cease within five years. One reason is that they do not wish to fight a battle they do not think they can win; they cite “over-burdening legislative changes coming down the line as a result of work being undertaken by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA)”. Another is to protect the sale of dead game domestically and abroad. Several supermarket chains here will only accept steel-shot game and the organisations fear that policy will become mandatory…

This rural estate in Surrey comes with 330 acres, including a lake, woodland, arable and pasture land and even a helipad. The selling agent believes a small shoot could be established amid the woodland and banked pasture. The main house, set within parkland gardens, has nine bedrooms and six reception rooms. The property also has both indoor and outdoor swimming pools, as well as a tennis court. The house runs to 26,000sq ft with brand new extensions to the property, which has been fully renovated while retaining many original period features. Other features of the house include a wine cellar and a gunroom. There is planning permission to convert the pool house into a lodge as well as extend the current gate lodges. The estate is four miles from Godalming.…

When, in 1960, three Army officers decided to run a Dartmoor youth expedition to give young civilians the experience of navigating, bivouacking and field cooking so enjoyed by the Army’s junior leaders, they could not have imagined that more than 2,400 teenagers would still be gathering to do it 60 years later. The Ten Tors event is widely respected as one of the toughest weekend challenges any teenager will tackle. Over-subscription means few teams east of Wiltshire get in, although thousands of children are motivated to get fit, take up walking and learn to navigate, since 40 or so may find themselves vying for one of six places on each team. Just making the starting line, therefore, is an achievement, a point emphasised with much military chutzpah as it gets…

IF I had been writing this column a couple of centuries ago, then the bulldog would have been a legitimate sporting dog to write about. Bulldogs were still being bred for bull-baiting, the principles of which were quite simple. The bulldog would be entered against a staked bull and would be expected to grab the unfortunate bovine by the nose, not letting go until it had successfully pulled the bull to the ground. It did this by corkscrewing its body around the bull’s neck, unbalancing the latter until it eventually fell over. It was quite a feat for a dog that weighed a mere 80lb to pull down a bull that might have weighed 2,000lb or more. Dogs that were not up to the task were liable to be tossed,…

SIX OF THE BEST TRADE FAVOURITES 2017 TESCO FINEST SAINT MONT (£6.50, Tesco) Cheap as chips and surprisingly complex, a white of great charm. PIZZOLATO PROSECCO TREVISO DOC (£10, Co-op) Brand new and flying off the shelves; organic and deliciously moreish. 2018 BERRY BROS & RUDD AUSTRALIAN PINOT NOIR (£14, BBR) From Victoria’s King Valley, soft, smooth, silky and seductively juicy. 2017 DISZNÓKÓ DRY FURMINT (£15, Lea & Sandeman) The grape of the moment from Hungary, beloved of wine merchants and restaurateurs. 2018 SOUTHERN RIGHT PINOTAGE (£18, Quay Wines) New wave Pinotage from South Africa that has had critics in a swoon. TAYLOR’S 10 YEAR OLD TAWNY PORT (£22, Sainsbury’s) Gloriously nutty and raisiny, a port to truly savour without the faff of having to decant. CRIKEY, I had to…

THE art of the miniaturist invites us to look at the familiar in a new way by reimagining it on a different scale. In that tradition, Nick Orr’s work captures a whole day’s shooting in a single feather from one bird. This extraordinary inversion of the beauty of birds in flight expressed microscopically through sculpting a sole flight feather came about by chance. Orr explains: “I pick up on 40 or 50 days a year and process the birds. One day I was breasting out a pheasant and my daughter asked for some feathers. It made me look at them and see how beautiful they were and I thought what a waste not to create something with them.” Having had his 10% of inspiration, Orr now had to go through…

We’re blessed with breeds that adore the aqua but nonetheless a good water retrieve requires a degree of boldness that not all gundogs possess; some far prefer to let others receive a wetting, even if that means their owners stripping down to their undies. Perhaps that’s why we all admire hounds that take every retrieve in their stroke, especially if that happens to be doggy paddle. Here we pay tribute to those that brook no failure, whether it involves an epic swim to bring a goose to shore or a splash through a stream to secure a pheasant. We love any excuse to retrieve from water – but not as much as shaking ourselves dry over master and mistress.…

Walter Rothschild, the eccentric eldest son of the first Baron Rothschild, once remarked: “Birds have the power of sucking the honesty out of people, like the vampire sucks blood.” The man who drove a carriage harnessed to four zebras to Buckingham Palace, just to prove that zebras could be tamed, was speaking from experience. His zoological collection, the largest ever amassed by a private individual, at one time included 300,000 bird skins and 200,000 eggs. Rothschild, who was given a museum by his father as a 21st birthday present, is a character in one of the strangest robbery stories you will ever read. It took place in 2009 and encompasses most of the seven deadly sins. Dozens of those involved have never been identified. It is the greatest wildlife crime…

Some 50 years ago, an advert was placed in the papers. The 17th-century blanket company Early’s of Witney was about to celebrate 300 years in business and was wondering if there were any other family firms out there of similar longevity; if there were, a free lunch was on offer. Geoffrey Durtnell, the then-chairman of Kent-based builders R Durtnell & Sons, saw the advert and, conscious that his family business was some 425 years old, responded and a jolly good lunch was duly enjoyed. Indeed, it was such a success that the men agreed to meet again the following year and, lo, the Tercentenarian Club was born. Such tenacious survival in the commercial world is no mean feat. Three hundred years ago Britain was a very different place indeed. Society…

FOR the British gunmaker, especially the bespoke London gunmaker, one of the most important markets was India. In particular, the princes of India, those rulers of the Indian Native States; the maharajahs, nawabs and rajas. Under British rule, there were always two Indias: the India administered by the central government in Delhi; and a separate India of the princes, who were independent but ‘advised’ by the British. Even as late as the end of World War II, the hereditary rulers of India still held sway over a third of India and a quarter of its population. Indian princes were among the richest men in the world at the turn of the century, with states and populations as large as many nations in Western Europe. Hyderabad, for instance, had an income…

ONE word summarises my sporting philosophy: companionship. The word, synonymous with sharing food together – from the Latin com panis, literally ‘with’ and ‘bread’ – expresses a celebration of enjoyment, derived from spending time with others. Etymology aside, this ancient ‘togetherness’ distils perfectly for me the joyful essence of sport and friends, conversation and mealtimes. A simple word, forged deeply into my DNA and shaping my family’s history. I was raised amidst the warm embrace of an extended Mediterranean/British family. My sister and I spent long, hot, Tuscan summers with our beloved Italian grandparents and against the dazzling backdrop of Carrara’s marble quarries those holidays with Nonna and Nonno were a magical world away from dreary Cheshire school days. Hunting, fishing and shooting were core to my family’s heartland, yet…

IF you’re a keen player of A34 JLR Bingo – it’s like pub cricket of old, but you play it on the A34 going north and get points for different Jaguar Land Rover products pouring south on the car transporters – you might have spotted a tiny variation in the hordes of F-Paces destined for the docks: a flash of golden-snitch yellow. It’ll be a new F-Pace 300 Sport loaded up among the standard F-Paces – though ‘standard’ is a bit harsh for an SUV that was a little late on the scene but now sells in record numbers. The yellow bits are easier to find once the 300 Sport is in the farmyard: there are badges front and back (matching the freshly flowering forsythia in the shrubbery) and the…

I MUST confess that I am feeling very sorry for myself, languishing in Cumbria at this moment. The Media Queen and I had secured this March and April, for the second year, an amazing fifth-floor apartment in Venice. Complete with a grand piano and not one but two rooftop balconies with panoramic views of the city, the idea was to read and write and immerse ourselves in the culture of that amazing city. I am prepared to accept that both Miss Maya Corona and Mr Ya’akov Corona have better reasons for self-aggrievement, having pointed out their names no longer have the same exotic ring as before, and that they may wish to change them to a less toxic form of address, like Meghan or Harvey. Poor Ya’akov, a Polish man…

Spend time with butterflies and bees Anyone with a garden or access to land can use this unusual time to grow closer to nature. Richard Fox at Butterfly Conservation suggests a few butterfly species to spot: “Brimstone, peacock, small tortoiseshell and red admiral are all getting active as the weather warms. The three common white butterflies (large, small and green-veined) are also a-wing, as are orange tips [pictured] and speckled wood. Look out too for the holly blue… in suburban or urban areas.” Butterfly Conservation chief executive Julie Williams said: “While it’s crucial that we all stay safe and take steps to keep ourselves and others physically well at the moment, it’s also important that we take care of our mental health, too. “Anxiety, isolation and feeling stuck at home…

ROW ONE Marcus Bullen; Sascha Holland, winner of Ladies’ High Gun; Julian Copeman, head of shooting at E J Churchill; Paulina Sengeridis; Georgina Menasche-Standen; James Thorn; Georgina Hall ON 7 March, EJ Churchill played host to the annual Varsity Match between Oxford and Cambridge universities. Undaunted by weeks of foul weather, a record-breaking 74 students, alumni and their guests took on a course of 100 English Sporting clays, followed by a 100-bird team flurry. Riding high on a three-year winning streak, the Oxford Men’s Blues Team was hot favourite. The Guns did not disappoint, seeing off a strong Cambridge team by 20 clays to win with a score of 418 out of 500, adding a fourth year to their winning streak and taking The Field Cup home yet again. The…

In his manifesto for the Arts & Crafts movement, founder William Morris wrote: “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” The best London gun fulfils these criteria perfectly: it is of absolute utility and a personal delight to its owner. Morris was writing in 1882, in his collection of essays Hopes and Fears for Art, at the height of the Victorian era. The Victorians believed every object, no matter how utilitarian, could be turned into a thing of beauty, from a sewage pumping station to a railway arch. It was in this mood of artistic optimism that the hand engraving of bespoke shotguns from the great makers, including Purdey and Holland & Holland, began to reach the heights. Elaborate…

The eel has always suffered from an image problem: snake-like, slippery, slimy, they are at the opposite end of the social spectrum to the more ‘sophisticated’ salmon. Yet the human relationship with this mysterious fish reaches beyond the Egyptian dynasties – they even appear in the Domesday Book as a form of tax payment. But in the 21st century, trafficking of the species is at unprecedented levels and threatens the eel’s very existence. It wasn’t always thus. On the River Wye, and on all water courses, the eel was once an important and cheap winter food source. Today, it is rarely eaten in the UK, other than by jellied-eel aficionados in the south-east. That might be because of taste or because they are just not as abundant any more. Their…

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Would a breakfast cheesetasting encourage more students to throw off their duvets for 9am lectures? It’s hard to say for sure, but for those attending the Academy of Cheese’s one-day Associate course, this is how the learning day begins. A group of around 20 cheese fanciers, myself among them, gather within the perfumed fug of cheesemonger Paxton & Whitfield, one of the academy’s 10 training partners spread across the UK. Outside, commuters stride along Jermyn Street scanning their phones, while we scan the name tags of the flagship store’s 150 cheeses reverently. Paxton’s Hero Hirsh, one of our teachers for the day, asks us which we would like to taste. Launched in 2017, the not-for-profit Academy of Cheese is the brainchild of cheesemaker Mary Quicke. The irrepressible Quicke – a…

THIS 32in-barrelled Breda 12-bore Zenith L game gun is imported by Viking Arms of Harrogate, North Yorkshire. It has a single, selective trigger and tight, unusually long, fixed chokes. Chambers are 2.in (70mm). The gun is proofed for steel shot – with the fleur-de-lys superior steel proof mark – in spite of the significant muzzle constrictions (40 and 41 thousands [thou] of an inch). A multichoked version is also available. The importers believe, however, that this long-barrelled, fixed-choke model might make a useful tool for high birds. The specification certainly suggests that it is a possibility. First impressions of the Zenith are good in nearly all departments. It weighs in at just over 7.lb – near ideal, in my opinion, for this type of gun and notably lighter than some…

I HAVE huge respect for the cooks, domestic and professional, who managed to feed the nation through World War II. But, in truth, there are not many recipes from that period I would want to recreate. I am utterly relieved I don’t have to worry about butter and milk shortages or having to use powdered egg instead of fresh. What I am keen on, however, is making sure I keep up some of their kitchen ethics. Food waste then was kept to an absolute minimum. Vegetables were washed and scrubbed rather than peeled, which created not only less waste but also meant more fibre and vitamins. Items such as baking paper and foil were reused and any surplus ingredients were preserved in some way. Wholemeal replaced white flour to reduce…