Innehållsförteckning för June 2025 från The Field

Eleanor Doughty Eleanor Doughty specialises in writing about country houses and land, including her ‘Great Estates’ series that appears in The Daily Telegraph profiling estate owners and their properties every fortnight. She has written for The Field on a range of subjects since 2017. Her debut book, Heirs and Graces: A History of the Modern British Aristocracy, will be published in September by Hutchinson Heinemann. When she is not writing, she can be found out with her cocker spaniel, Meg, who has been her gateway to the gundog universe. What does June hold? “I’m mostly looking forward to what the garden at home brings. Despite my spaniel’s best efforts, I am hoping for a wonderful display in my borders. I’d love to see them packed with roses and some lovely…

A compulsory deer management control scheme has been approved by the Scottish government to control red deer numbers on the Loch Choire estate in Sutherland. NatureScot’s board decision to use intervention powers under Section 8 of the Deer (Scotland) Act 1996 is the first time a control scheme has been used in Scotland. This follows an earlier intervention in 2023 when NatureScot staff carried out a cull but subsequent efforts to secure a longer-term solution at the estate have been unsuccessful. NatureScot said it is acting to prevent damage to important habitats on the estate, including Sites of Special Scientific Interest. “Deer are an important part of our biodiversity but in high numbers they can have a negative impact on woodlands, peatlands and other habitats,” said Robbie Kernahan, NatureScot’s director…

WHEN HENRY Pelham-Clinton, 7th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne, married Kathleen Florence May Candy in 1889, the Duke and his new Duchess shared a common interest in breeding and showing dogs, which had become ever more fashionable from the middle of the 19th century. Mobility during the Industrial Revolution, when roads improved and railways opened the country up, led to agricultural shows and great advances in all livestock, as the best in one area were selected to improve those in another. Dog shows became phenomenally popular after the first – purely for setters and pointers – was organised by the gunmaker WR Pape and held at the annual Newcastle Cattle Sale in 1859, with JH Walsh, editor of The Field, as one of the judges. Mixed breed class shows followed at Birmingham…

IF YOU were to identify one thing to distinguish between an average and good clay pigeon shot, apart from disciplined focus on the bird and sound physical technique, it would be the development of effective pre-shot routine and planning. Game shots may struggle when addressing clays because of fundamental errors in setting themselves up. They may not properly consider the target before them nor plan to shoot it most efficiently (if they plan at all). Many regular clay shots do not play their best game for the same reason. Some 40 years ago, as I became interested in serious clay competition, I watched the best shots in action to identify what they had in common. They certainly had diverse styles but they all seemed to demonstrate three abilities: enhanced visual…

SUMMERTIME in Britain is puppy show season. On any day through the months of June, July and sometimes August, hunts up and down the land will be displaying last year’s puppies to a glorious multigenerational gathering of puppy walkers and hunting faithful. The main objective of these occasions is to thank the puppy walkers. It is also an open day of sorts for the kennels, requiring intense amounts of sweeping, painting and mowing beforehand. In the run-up, hunt staff will also be occupied with educating the puppies in the ways of showing: they must master the intense cockheaded stare at the proffered biscuit, the swift pursuit of a biscuit to the corner of the ring. The nervous, sternclamped search for the exit will have to be overcome in favour of…

EGYPTIAN iconography is so deep in our national psyche that we no longer give it a second thought when we watch Victoria Coren Mitchell’s Only Connect with its ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs: two reeds, lion, twisted flax, horned viper, water, eye of Horus. Nor do we think it unusual that the central escalators in Harrods are in a fabulously kitsch Egyptian style. We also take it for granted that obelisks are the focal points of many towns, cities and landscapes across the UK or that we can stumble across a pyramid in deepest Norfolk or in the Highlands of Scotland. How did the architecture of a land some 2,000 miles away, whose great pyramids and obelisks were erected around 4,500 years ago, become so widely adopted across the British Isles? At…

THIS MAY we commemorated the end of the Second World War in Europe. While I watched the footage of that day, 80 years ago, when ecstatic crowds celebrated the surrender of Nazi Germany to the Allies, I found my thoughts straying back to where the war began: in Poland, on 1 September 1939. The German battleship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on a 200-strong force of the Polish 1st Armoured Brigade stationed on Westerplatte, a peninsula of land in the harbour channel close to the port city of Danzig (present-day Gdańsk). The garrison held out against German air and land forces for an astonishing seven days before surrendering, earning themselves the undying admiration of their countrymen. I imagine that most gardeners will know the name ‘Westerplatte’ from the clematis that bears its…

THE LATE Christopher Hitchens famously declared that the four most overrated things in the world were champagne, lobsters, an intimate activity far too fruity to describe in a family magazine such as this one and picnics. As befits a notorious contrarian, he was as wrong as wrong can be about champagne but bang on the money about picnics, which, in my experience, can be dire occasions that invariably take place in extreme discomfort somewhere too hot, too cold, too wet or too cramped on a moth-eaten, ant-ridden, mosquito-plagued rug or (more usually) in the back of a rain-lashed car in the company of folk you don’t like with food you can’t stomach. And why is it that picnics, like barbecues, are so often prepared by those (generally men) who never…

Across 5 Racing dog larger than a whippet (9) 7 One of three on a trident (5) 9 Disengage a shotgun’s safety catch, say (7) 10 Classic over-and-under Rizzini shotgun; Greek goddess of the hunt (7) 11 A croquet game usually requires six (5) 12 Broadleaf tree with fruits called masts (5) 13 Meadow in arable area (3) 14 Common name for hawthorn (3,4) 16 Joint above a horse’s hoof (7) 18 Staff’s shotgun barrel cleaner? (3) 20 Flora’s often associated with this, naturally (5) 22 A dog’s hindquarters from hip to stifle (5) 24 Riding a horse – and coughing (7) 25 Bird of prey, often hovering by roadside verges (7) 26 Gin-___ – Singapore one? (5) 27 Seasonal working spaniels, they flush out game (9) Down 1 Rare…

NEW FIGURES claiming to show the scale of havoc caused by hunting have made headlines on the internet in recent weeks. No doubt Field readers have seen such reporting appearing on websites and in various local newspapers around the UK. But look a little closer and you will find that there is virtually no verification of those findings. The articles are based on little more than a press release taken directly from an activist group. The claim comes from an endof-hunting-season report produced by the League Against Cruel Sports, citing almost 1,600 incidents across England and Wales. Its release seems to be timed to influence MPs, given that the Labour Government has a manifesto commitment to ban trail hunting. As a former director of the League, I know how it…

Supporters of the Vale of Lune Harriers continued their long tradition of fundraising last season but chose to help Cancer Research with a very personal motivation. “As a committee, every year we decide which charity we will focus our efforts on, and this year we sadly lost two farmers to cancer,” explains hunt secretary Eleanor Tomlinson. “We’re a close-knit community and we run a programme of social events to help combat rural isolation, which is especially important as many farmers are facing difficult times.” One of the events was the Vale of Lune’s first charity hound race held at the Hunt’s kennels. Throughout the day there were six races with six hounds competing in each one. “It was such a great success that I think it’s going to become an…

THE OXFORD-Cambridge rivalry dates back more than eight centuries, from academics to rowing, but one event of particular note for readers of The Field is the fiercely contested annual clay pigeon shooting Varsity match. This year Oxford hosted Cambridge at EJ Churchill Buckinghamshire, Home of Shooting in March for a 100-bird sporting and a flush competition contested by more than 100 competitors. Following a successful year for the clubs, including both getting to the podium at the National Universities Championship, it was destined to be a closely fought match. Ultimately Cambridge were victorious on both the Blues’ sides, winning the Men’s Field Cup with a score of 338/400 (Tom Homewood, Nick von Jeinsen, Will Boxall and Ethan Kuhn) and the Women’s Field Cup with 291/400 (Liz Stevenson, Georgie Chamberlain, Emily…

THIS IS one of the largest and most ecologically significant estates in the Inner Hebrides. Extending to more than 19,200 acres on the southern tip of the Isle of Skye, it has, says the agent, ‘a cultural resonance that stretches far beyond Skye and with deep roots in Highland history’. In addition to its coastal setting and environmental importance, there is scope for residential and commercial development alongside nature restoration and natural capital opportunities. The estate is situated on the Sleat Peninsula, once the lands of Clan Donald, has 20 miles of shoreline as well as native woodland, peatland habitats and open moorland. Several sites have been identified for residential and ecotourism schemes (subject to planning), including a steading and a bothy, and land forming part of the Kilbeg village…

WIN £2,000 prize THE FIELD always has The Game Fair inked into our summer season diary. It is the countryside’s quintessential day out, offering everything from the chance to shoot clays, run your gundog in a scurry (or watch the experts), replenish the larder with all manner of excellent food and your boot room with all the requisite sporting kit for the coming season. We think it’s the best gathering and, as such, we couldn’t be more thrilled to offer Field readers a chance to win a luxurious weekend glamping experience at The Game Fair this July. “Worth £2,000, this super prize offers everything you could need for an unforgettable weekend” WIN A LUXURIOUS WEEKEND GLAMPING EXPERIENCE Imagine resting your head in a deluxe yurt on the Polo Lawn of…

IT’S NO secret that our piscatorial triumphs sound so much better in the telling if the heroic angler outwits a wily foe. So we embellish our trout with fishy superpowers, like intelligence and emotional guile. Even when we lose to them, we’re never beaten by a run-of-themill fish: it was ‘big, arrogant and knew exactly what it was doing’. I suspect it’s mostly male vanity that needs to prove its mettle in combat with a two-pound fish, although with the passage of time most of us learn there isn’t a trout big enough to transform us into warrior princes or princesses. So we also need ‘clever’ fish to make us look good. Size isn’t everything. Is it? Type ‘think like a trout’ into your search engine and admire the flood…

WE HAVE always been a country of makers. Much of Britain’s reputation for excellence was built on the transformation of high-quality materials into finely made goods. The arrival of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century threatened to irrevocably change this long-held tradition of artistry, passed from generation to generation. Yet it did not prove terminal for our artisans and their centuries-old methods. By the mid-19th century, a counter-cultural movement emerged championing traditional techniques and use of materials. The Arts and Crafts revival generated markets that supported a new wave of craftspeople bringing their personal talents and innovation to ancient handwork. What resulted was the twinning of old and new, being at once historic and modern, functional yet creative. A new collective of talents are taking up the mantle of…

SHOOTING can attract the flashier type: those who arrive by helicopter, who shoot with a Fabbri Titanium gun and wear £350 alpaca socks. But if you really want to impress your host – or indeed your guests – there’s a classier way of showing off: turn up wearing your own estate tweed. This is tweed you can’t buy in a shop, even swanky ones in Mayfair. This is tweed that either you have inherited or has been designed very specifically for you and, usually, your Scottish estate. “This is bespoke, upon bespoke,” says Campbell Carey, 50, the creative director of Huntsman, one of Savile Row’s smarter tailoring companies, which has dressed everyone from Edward VII and George V to Clark Gable and Brad Pitt. It is also famous for its…

TINKER, TAILOR, soldier, sailor…’ The cherry delightfully permeates not just this nation’s plates but our culture. When British winter drags interminably, the early-flowering cherry feels laden with perfect blossom and cheering metaphor. And what better way to mark this country’s sweet yet all-too-fleeting, rain-shadowed summer than a triumphant bowl of ripe, fresh cherries? It is no coincidence that AE Housman, popular poet of the English countryside, shares his Ludlow burial place with a cherry tree. In A Shropshire Lad he memorably captures its unrivalled beauty and weighty symbolism: Beauty, purity and death are just the start. For millennia, artists worldwide have deployed the cherry not only for its aesthetic appeal but also as a vivid epresentation of our own vices and virtues. This is a fruit whose highly charged symbolism…

THE 19TH century was a time of huge technical and social transformation, and the world of firearms was not immune from being touched by this change. Indeed, the Great Exhibition of 1851 would amply demonstrate that innovation was not only happening but happening at pace. One of the weapons developed that exemplifies this shift was designed by the famous soldier and Indian administrator General John Jacob, and it bears his name. John Jacob entered the Honourable East India Company’s (HEIC) military seminary at Addiscombe, near modern-day Croydon, as a cadet at the tender age of 14. The HEIC needed trained soldiers because it maintained three private armies in India: the Bombay, Madras and Bengal. These were composed of both Indian regiments officered by the British and regiments comprising entirely Europeans,…

THIS TEST looks at the latest model of Maxum over-and-under from Caesar Guerini, imported by Anglo Italian Arms in Solihull. It is a 30in 20-bore with a single selective trigger and a solid, tapered sighting rib. The gun, proofed for highperformance steel (up to ½ choke) at 1,320 bar and supplied with five multichokes, hits the scales a whisker under 7lb – on the money for a machine-made 20-bore. First impressions are good: the coinfinished gun looks smart with deep, laser-cut scroll engraving to the sideplates and action body. Wood is well figured and finished, and the rounded, slim fore-end is what many will want. An open-radius full-pistol grip replaces the round-knob semi-pistol seen previously on this model. A similar grip shape graced the discontinued Essex model, and is still…

IT WAS 2012 when Royal Ascot decided to get tough: a gleeful farewell to fascinators, rulers at the ready for spaghetti straps, bottom-skimming skirts banished. And the air was heady with suspense. Yes, for Frankel; of course for Estimate. But also for the risk of being collared by those air hostess-like fashion police armed at the gates with baskets full of jewelcoloured pashminas ready to shame the rule-breakers: the ultimate cloak of humiliation for anyone with enough teenage-esque rebellion to dabble with a halterneck. For those five halcyon days in June there’s a thrill to playing by the rules, a welcome submission to a bygone era of top hats, stiff collars and tightly furled umbrellas. And so it’s always been. ‘The startling news that lounge suits are to be allowed…

Shooting consistently faces pressure from those opposed to it and this intense scrutiny can feel to those who manage gamebirds that everything they do is being judged. The National Gamekeepers Organisation recently revealed that 68.3% of keepers have been threatened for doing their job. This is appalling, and all organisations are working to improve this situation. However, being held to account for our actions should not be considered unreasonable. After all, we should all be trying to work to the highest standards and should have nothing to hide. In fact, we should be proud of the work we do and the conservation outcomes we achieve in doing so. This is where the GWCT can help: we provide accredited best-practice training that gives keepers the opportunity to demonstrate that they and…

SHORT of a plague of locusts (and perhaps Defra is considering the release of this voracious variety of grasshopper), it is difficult to know what the Government might throw at farmers next. If locusts are on the way, though, they’d better hurry up or there will be no crops to plunder, as never has the word ‘diversification’ dominated the rural agenda so urgently. Brexit and the loss of EU subsidies was an early warning for traditional agricultural business models, and it was this trigger that first set Jo and James Butler thinking about what the fields of tomorrow could look like. With 1,500 acres of arable land, the fifthgeneration family farmers had moved away from their dairy herd. This meant the dairy building was redundant and, in its place, stands…

Save up to 50% Enjoy these great subscriber benefits Full digital access to past and future issues when you subscribe to the print edition** Pay less than you would in the shops Delivered in plastic-free paper wrap Never miss an issue Easy ways to subscribe Online: thefieldsubs.co.uk/DJ23R Telephone: 0330 333 1113 Quote code DJ23R Lines open Monday to Friday 8.30am-7pm, and Saturday 10am-3pm (excluding Bank Holidays) Offer closes 20 October 2025. Offer open to new subscribers only. Direct Debit offer is available to UK subscribers only. *£17.97 payable every six months by Direct Debit. Please allow up to six weeks for delivery of your first subscription issue (up to eight weeks overseas). The full subscription rate is for 12 months (12 issues) and includes postage and packaging. If the magazine ordered…

THE FIRST time I catch up with Charlie Thorburn, the gundog trainer to the 1%, he has just joined the M6 Toll and has been awake for a long time. Thorburn is on his way home to Perthshire from New York where he has been delivering a trio of fully trained dogs to their new homes with wealthy families across the USA. This jet-setting element of his very busy life forms a considerable part of the gundog-producing empire, Mordor Gundogs, that he runs from the home and kennels that he built from scratch 13 miles outside Perth. Thorburn, the son of an Army officer, swapped a place at Sandhurst for training dogs. He has been producing labradors and spaniels for both domestic and international dog-loving, sporting families for the past…

THE INTIMACY and fruitfulness of the relationship with one’s tailor can make it one of the most rewarding – ask any Regency buck. A good tailor has the ability to enable almost anyone to cut a dash, knowing how to compensate and conceal in just the right way to leave their client looking and feeling their very best: if clothes don’t entirely maketh the man they certainly help. Any of the servicemen who have benefited from shirtmaker Emma Willis’s charity Style for Soldiers can attest to this. Willis founded her organisation in 2008 in response to the horrific injuries sustained by soldiers in Afghanistan, asking herself: “What can I do?” The answer was clear. “I can make them a shirt; I can make a shirt to fit anyone,” she thought,…

Art in the field Zoë Carmichael’s Equi Servientes bronzes capture the beauty and spirit of military horses, says Janet Menzies STARTING with His Majesty The King’s Birthday Parade and Royal Ascot, the highlights of Britain’s summer season are all about pomp, pageantry, picnics and, most of all, horses. For sculptor Zoë Carmichael, this June is going to be especially exciting, as her Equi Servientes collection of bronzes for the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment (HCMR) goes on show. “In fact we are hoping that all three of the subjects for the bronzes will be participating in The King’s Birthday Parade, and then the sculptures will be on display at Royal Ascot,” says Carmichael. It will be hard to miss Juno, the first mare to become a drum horse of the Household…

IT’S AN interesting but oftenforgotten fact that Charles I Darwin’s theories on evolution were based just as much on his studies of domestic pigeons as by the finches of the Galápagos. Darwin was fascinated with pigeons – from tumblers to fantails – because they all had the same ancestor: the rock dove. On the Origin of Species was published in 1859, at a time when our various breeds of gundogs were rapidly evolving into the sporting dogs of today. I’m sure that Darwin, were he alive today, would be equally captivated by gundog evolution. Here in Britain we have three distinct types of gundogs. The oldest are spaniels, followed by the pointers and setters, with the retrievers the most recent additions. All are descended from the same canine ancestors but…

Give heel pain the boot Q At the close of the past few shooting seasons I have ended up with extremely cracked heels, which are very painful. I haven’t changed my boots, though I have worn wellingtons a couple of times. Any Field advice on how I can prepare for next season to prevent this? JW, Carmarthenshire A Cracked heels develop for a variety of reasons, from hard or unsupportive footwear to being on your feet for long periods of time. If the cracks on the heels are deep and bleeding, contact a podiatrist for an initial consultation. Usually, their advice otherwise is to invest in a pumice stone or an electric foot file. Employ this most mornings to remove any hard skin, and moisturise three times a day with a thick moisturiser…

Anchovy and cheese straws Crisp, buttery and with a sophisticated hit of anchovy, these cheese straws make a great pre-party nibble and pair particularly well with a chilled glass of English fizz. Once the straws are made and twisted, you can freeze them flat on a baking sheet then store in a zip-seal bag. When required, spread them out on a lined baking sheet and allow to defrost overnight in the fridge before cooking as normal. Makes 16 straws 12 anchovies in oilPinch of red chilli flakes75g strong cheddar, finely grated1 tsp fennel seeds, finely chopped1 tsp rosemary, finely chopped1 small garlic clove, peeled and finely grated320g x rectangle ready-rolled allbutter puff pastry1 medium freerange egg 1 Finely chop the anchovies and place in a small bowl or jug with…

ONE OF the pleasures of being of a certain age is seasoned friendships and familiar landscapes. Since the early 1970s, when I stayed often as a schoolboy on a farm near Cirencester, one for me has been to return to South Gloucestershire to find little has changed and several of the friends I made then are still there. We can talk without embarrassment about crushed velvet ‘loon pants’ and our teenage follies, sneaking into pubs while under age, a glitter ball at parties and the innocent whiff of patchouli oil. For those parties I sometimes stayed, thinking little of the splendour of my surroundings, at both Easton Grey and Highgrove: two of the finest mansions in the county, then under different owners. At Highgrove I would listen in the hay…