Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2025 i The Field

The annual Winter Appeal of The Country Food Trust successfully raised £63,898, which will go towards extending the charity’s work in supporting individuals and families in the UK facing food insecurity. Not only will these funds help provide high-quality protein to those who may not have access to it but also gives some of those helped by the Trust a first experience of foods such as venison and pheasant. “We were delighted with the response and humbled by the support of the countryside community in our mission to help feed people in need with these wonderful proteins,” said SJ Hunt of The Country Food Trust. Meanwhile, a new fundraising initiative from Eat Wild and the GWCT saw donations top £3,000. The ‘Fiver for the Future’ campaign asked shooting school guests…

A CENTURY on from when John Buchan published his adventure novel John Macnab in 1925, it’s easy to forget the sheer brazen daring of those poachers who inspired the great modern fieldsports challenge. But as guests gathered in the chandelier-studded ballroom of the Savile Club in Mayfair, the author’s granddaughter – and The Field’s gardening columnist – Ursula Buchan brought it back to life, with a talk recounting tales of the Scottish author in an age of valour and sporting utopia. Generously sponsored by Blaser and Westley Richards, the dinner was a chance to celebrate the successful 2024 Macnabbers. And with just three sportsmen victorious in catching a salmon, shooting a stag and finishing with a brace of grouse, all before dusk, there was an added cache to their triumph…

THIS LINCOLNSHIRE farm runs to 309 acres of productive arable land and comes with a mile of fishing rights along the Fossdyke Canal. The Victorian farmhouse dates to 1850 but underwent refurbishment 16 years ago. It has four bedrooms, a large sitting room with doors out to the terrace, a dining room, a drawing room and a cellar, with underfloor heating throughout. The property enjoys views across the farmland to the east and west, while set in the grounds is a large double garage and a vegetable garden. There is a range of modern and traditional farm buildings, and the land – including an irrigation pond with a capacity of 41,000 cubic metres and extraction rights until 2040 – is currently farmed in hand. Manor Farm is located on the…

ONCE PRESENT in every county in England, today black grouse are red-listed as a species of high conservation concern. The GWCT has been studying this iconic bird and monitoring numbers in the English uplands since the early 1990s. In that time the population has been broadly stable, fluctuating between 1,000 and 2,000 displaying males, but it remains restricted to the North Pennines: parts of County Durham, Northumberland, Cumbria and North Yorkshire. To build resilience into the existing population and mitigate against negative impacts of climate change, it is vital to expand their range. A series of events, including rare sightings of greyhens in the North York Moors in recent years, widespread land manager support and landscape-scale habitat improvements, inspired the GWCT to apply to Natural England’s Species Recovery Programme to…

LIKE MANY native breeds of the British Isles, the Suffolk Horse is not only critically endangered but also right at the top of the Rare Breed Survival Trust’s (RBST) 2024-25 Equine Watchlist. Farmer and rare-breeds champion Adam Henson, whose father Joe Henson set up the RBST in 1973, lays bare the figures: “There are only 75 breeding mares left in Britain and just 300 females left in the world. It’s a sad situation, especially as most people championing rare breeds are now in their seventies and eighties.” Henson continues his father’s rare-breed legacy at the Cotswold Farm Park in Gloucestershire. In response to the plight of the Suffolk Horse – or Suffolk Punch as it is often known – in June last summer the farm park hosted a Suffolk Punch…

EASTER bunnies, made from chocolate, are not normally the concern of this Sporting Dog columnist: after all, proper sporting dogs much prefer proper bunnies. That’s at least what I thought but now I’m not so sure, having heard the story of a friend’s labrador. The dog not only stole his daughter’s chocolate bunny but ate the whole thing, paper and all. No evidence remained of the crime, just a guilty-looking dog. While the daughter bemoaned the loss of her Easter chocolate, her parents debated whether the dog should go to the vet for stomach-pump treatment. However, as the dog showed no signs of any ill effects, it was spared a visit to the surgery. My pal was well aware that chocolate can be poisonous to dogs but he did his…

Send queries to Rosie Macdonald, Country Queries Editor, The Field, Future Publishing PLC, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR. For more, visit: thefield.co.uk Email country-queries@hectareshouse.co.uk Follow Rosie on Instagram @dizzy_m One for the wall Q This is rather an odd request but I am trying to find a poster for my niece at university, who has joined the clay pigeon club in her first year. She had seen it in an old magazine that has since been thrown out. It was of a lady wearing or holding a gun and apparently looked like a dress. I appreciate this is a long shot but wonder if you might be able to help? HJB, Yorkshire A I believe the poster you are referring to is one that won an award in the 1990s…

Rabbit, cider and bacon pie When choosing your cider, try to find one that’s been produced using the traditional method with 100% apple juice by a UK maker. I am a big fan of Dowding’s and Cranborne Chase Cider. Serves 8 You will need a deep 30cm-wide circular pie dish ▶ Filling 2 rabbits, each jointed into 46 tbsp rapeseed oil500g trimmed leeks, diced into 1½cm pieces4 sticks celery, diced into 1½cm pieces250g smoked streaky bacon, diced into1cm pieces3 tbsp tarragon, finely chopped500ml cider400ml water150g crème fraîche1½ tsp Dijon mustard1½ tbsp plain flour50ml double cream ▶ Base 450g shortcrust pastry ▶ Top 400g x all-butter puff pastry, rolled to the thickness of a £1 coin in a 30cm-diameter circle1 egg, lightly beaten Filling 1 In a casserole dish on a medium heat, in…

WHISPER it. Yell it. Or chant it with rhythmic precision. There’s a camaraderie to being a (tasteful) potty mouth. Meet someone who doesn’t have the odd outburst and it’s likely it’s not just the use of the F-word that you’ll disagree over. More telling than a (bad) pair of shoes is a new acquaintance’s attitude to swearing – and there’s perhaps no greater sorting hat than a sporting field in the driving rain for sussing out the expletive aficionados. ‘One of the marked characteristics of the angler is his love of solitude. His non-angling hearers probably think that he wishes to attune his soul to nature. Not a bit of it! He wants to be able to swear at ease,’ exclaimed W Quilliam in a March 1909 issue of The…

FARMING practice is always a reflection of the political and social priorities of the age. In the middle of the 20th century, food production and the security it brought was a major national concern. Government policy was bent around encouraging farmers to farm more land, harder, to ensure that recently experienced shortages would never occur again. Mechanical horsepower replaced the flesh-and-blood variety; fields became larger and rapid scientific advances led to the ever-increasing use of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides. We were massively successful in our endeavours, and by the 1980s British farmers were producing some 80% of domestic food requirements. In recent decades, our national primary concerns have shifted. We now have legally binding targets to increase biodiversity, improve water and air quality and reduce carbon emissions. With farmed land…

The White Bridge syndicate on the Caledon estate in County Tyrone always tries to do the right thing, be that in serving only game shot on the estate or in looking after members like family. And so when syndicate stalwart Simon Dougan was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last summer, all involved rallied around. “Although I couldn’t shoot because of a PICC line, I attended every shoot day even when I had a chemo bottle attached,” says Dougan. “Our amazing gamekeeper, Alan Lutton, provided me with a buggy so I could get around all the drives. Being outside and taking part in the banter was so important to me.” When the syndicate held a charity shoot, NIPANC (the Northern Irish pancreatic cancer charity) alongside Macmillan and the Lough Neagh Rescue lifeboat…

JUST UP from the Gun Inn, in the little village of Keyhaven near Milford on Sea in Hampshire, is a house called Hawker’s Cottage. It was built as a shooting lodge in 1815 by Colonel Peter Hawker, the ‘father of wildfowling’, renowned shot, diarist and author of Instructions to Young Sportsmen in All That Relates to Guns and Shooting (1814). Hawker used the lodge as his headquarters for launching puntgunning forays into the Solent from the adjacent tidal creek, and for wildfowling in the extensive Keyhaven, Pennington and Lymington saltmarshes. The son of Colonel Peter Ryves Hawker of Longparish House on the banks of the River Test, he was born in 1786 and educated at Eton before being gazetted cornet to the 1st Royal Dragoons in 1801, transferring to the…

FOR A host of reasons chalkstreams capture people’s attention and affections. They are globally unique, freshwater marvels, and important habitat to iconic species such as salmon, native crayfish, otters and mayfly. But generally you learn these things after the chalkstream has already caught you in its spell. I fell for them when I was a boy and before I had any idea they were chalkstreams. The creeks of North Norfolk fascinated me with their impossible, blowsy clarity, their gentle hurry, their aura of peace and all the little fish that swam in them, which I failed to catch. Later, and more consciously, I fell for the chalkstreams in Wessex, where I moved to teach art in 1987. I met the late Richard Slocock, a pioneer of catch-and-release wild trout fishing…

ONE OF the proudest moments of my career with the GWCT’s advisory service was when my friends and clients Ian and Claire Smith of Nether Hale in Kent came first in the Purdey Awards for Game & Conservation in 2003. Four years earlier, with just 350 acres to play with and a tight squeeze in the market for their main crop, the humble cauliflower, they had decided to stop growing them. Instead they would farm in a more diverse and conservation-friendly way, and do whatever they could to rescue a grey partridge population on the brink. The results were spectacular, with the pair count going from three in spring 2000 to 25 and rising by 2003. There were parallel increases in many other farmland birds, and hare populations increased by…

THE UPPER reaches of the River Fal as it is joined by the Truro River beneath the Gothic splendour of Tregothnan are magical and ancient. Since time immemorial the deep, tidal waterway has brought trade and comparative prosperity to the communities along its banks. Linking Truro with the great port of Falmouth, these waterways have been plied by traders, tinners and smugglers over the centuries and some of these became very prosperous indeed. In 1603 Richard Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, recorded that ‘Descending from Truro to the haven’s mouth by water you are overlooked by sundry gentlemen’s commodious seats.’ The grandest of them all is Tregothnan: seat of the Viscounts Falmouth and producer of fine Cornish tea from its riverside plantations. On a blustery March morning, we wound…

AT THIS time of the year in the garden, I feel like Ratty reciting his picnic to Mole in The Wind in the Willows: ‘There’s cold chicken inside it,’ replied the Rat briefly; ‘coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrollscresssandwichespottedmeatgingerbeerlemonadesodawater…’ Except, in my case, it’s ‘takesoftwoodcuttingsdivideperennialsweedandmulchborderssowhalfhardyannualsplantvegetablesdeadheaddaffodilstransplantautumnsownsweetpeas…’ I could go on – and on. Truth is, I need strong resolve to get the best out of the early spring and set up the garden for a successful and satisfactory season. Time was when I freewheeled through the spring, relying on past experience and a careful eye to ensure that important tasks were not delayed or ignored. No longer. These days, I know that I must plan my gardening with some precision to accommodate a memory that can sometimes mislead, a body that can no longer work 10…

Across 1 Young pigeon, liked by chefs (5) 4 E.g. salmon, trout (4,4) 8 Colour of ‘Clean Beach’ flag award (4) 9 Scottish island location of Dougarie estate (5) 10 And 11 across. Large shooting acreage in Co Durham: say a better sort? (4) 11 See 10 across (6) 13 Fast, turbulent stretch of water (7) 14 Dry Italian cheese (8) 16 Fowl enclosure (3-3) 18 Garden tools; playing cards (6) 20 It connects e.g. draught horse to cart (7) 22 Horse’s tooth historically called ‘nipper’ (7) 24 Strip of boot material to adjust leg calf width (6) 26 One of many in an apiary (4) 27 Tree fruit symbol used on National Trails waymarks (5) 28 See 4 down (4) 29 Woodland flowers: one names variety (8) 30 Flock…

Is greater gun control on the horizon? Countryside groups have warned that the Government’s response to the 2023 firearms licensing consultation is a cause for concern, especially for shotgun owners. Great weight appears to have been given to the view of the 0.07% of respondents that called for tighter restrictions. Furthermore, the Government has asked for the consultation to be reopened to examine how there could be closer ‘alignment’ of shotgun and firearm controls: in essence treating shotguns more like Section 1 firearms. This would consider issues such as whether there are ‘risks associated with shotguns being kept in certificate owners’ own homes’. “The Government’s statement is a worry for the countryside. Its machinations would cause gargantuan damage to farmers, keepers, recreational shots and all the good they bring,” believes…

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CERTAIN qualities identify a first-class shot: good, balanced stance (especially as the trigger is pulled), excellent vision and timing and, not least, consistent gun mounting. Many never learn to mount a gun really well. They may never realise their potential as a result. Too often the mount is rushed and performed with insufficient control of the muzzles. The common error is to ‘bash and slash’ – in other words, to slam the gun up to the shoulder too quickly and then slash at the bird. Wild, inconsistent shooting inevitably follows. And those who rush often rush to a stop and miss their mark behind with puzzlement. Unless you are shooting at a static pattern plate or a bird coming straight on or moving straight away, the mount will generally incorporate…

THE NEWS of a hunt disbanding or merging can make one feel disheartened but there is comfort in the realisation that this phenomenon is nothing new. It was something I was mulling over when driving down the M1 towards London. Just past the M1/M25 junction, heading towards Watford, out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of the village of Aldenham on the edge of my sat-nav. Why did that name seem familiar? Then it struck me: there was a pack of harriers called the Aldenham, which disbanded in 2006. Could the Aldenham that I had spotted on my sat-nav be the same Aldenham that this pack of harriers had been named after? Curiosity piqued, it was time to rediscover some of those other packs that have disappeared…

AT 9AM the late Princess Margaret would take breakfast in bed, followed by two hours listening to the radio, reading the newspapers (which she left scattered over the floor) and chain-smoking, recounted satirist Craig Brown in his biography of the Princess, Ma’am Darling. It was based on an hour-by-hour description of the Princess’s daily routine given by her 1950s footman David John Payne: at 11am she’d climb into a steaming bath run for her by her lady’s maid and at 12.30pm she’d appear downstairs for a vodka pick-me-up before joining the Queen Mother for a four-course lunch. It was a masterclass in no-holds-barred luxury. Because here’s the thing: half a dozen Jersey rock oysters at Bellamy’s in Mayfair is certainly a treat; a London best gun is on the lottery-winning…

THE COLLECTION of the Royal Armouries not only contains firearms and other weapons associated with the Royal houses of the UK but it also features those from a variety of European royal houses. These include examples from the German states, France, Russia and – in the case of the pistols this article concerns – Spain. Like many monarchs around Europe, the kings of Spain had created the position of royal gunmaker. For Spain in 1692 that was German-born gunsmith Nicolás Bamproyssem y Bis, a former pupil of the previous royal gunmaker Juan Belén who had died in 1691. Subsequently on the death of King Carlos II in 1700 Nicolás Bis, as he understandably called himself, came into the service of the French Duke of Anjou, who had travelled from Versailles…

THIS MONTH’S test concerns a Fabarm Autumn Elite 20-bore: a 28in-barrelled, trigger-plate side-by-side with single selective trigger. It is a bells-and-whistles version of the firm’s Autumn model, with silver nitride coin finish, open scroll laser engraving, (fairly restrained) gold gamebird inlays and upgraded wood. The basic Autumn, which may still appeal to traditionalists, has chemically applied colour case hardening (emulating the look of the classic bonemeal process) without the goldwork. First impressions of the Elite are of a smart gun: a sort of mini pigeon gun that is quite boldly, but tastefully, decorated. Some might do without the gold birds but they suit the character of the gun. Not much separates the two Autumn models in price: £3,495 for the Elite and £3,350 for the plainer version. There is also…

CARRYING off the role of both boutique hotel and vibrant village boozer isn’t easy but The Nevill Arms in Medbourne, Leicestershire manages it with aplomb. Any night of the week the pub will be busy with locals and the car park bursting with 4x4s more than familiar with offroading. However, beyond the bustling bar and its chalkboards advertising quiz nights and supper club specials is a restaurant and 10 bedrooms with an offering that could never be described as provincial. The village of Medbourne is nestled between the market towns of Market Harborough and Uppingham in the heart of the Welland Valley, which has been dubbed ‘the Notswolds’ thanks to it being every bit as pretty as the Cotwolds but without hordes of visitors. “I always say to people that…