Innehållsförteckning för January 2016 från The Field

ARUNDELL ARMS The 2016 Good Hotel Guide names the Lifton-based fishing hotel as an editor’s choice. FIREARMS LAW The Metropolitan Police has set up an advisory panel to improve cooperation between its firearms enquiry team and BASC and other shooting-interest organisations. FISHING FUNDING The S&TA’s annual auction was the “best ever” raising £80,000 to help finance projects and campaigns. HORSE’S HERO David Wilson, who saved a police horse from a dog attack in London, has been awarded the British Horse Society’s Sefton Award. HEATER SALESMEN The early arrival of Bewick’s swans at WWT Slimbridge in Gloucestershire has fuelled expectations of a long, cold winter.…

Write to The Editor, The Field, Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark Street, London SE1 0SU Email field.secretary@timeinc.com (letters may be edited for clarity or space) ANOTHER COUNTRY “Why do we always run out of milk, and daddy never runs out of wine ? FUNKY GIBBONS Please, please, please publish more articles by Robert Gibbons (Slipping standards or just progress? November issue). They are highly entertaining and we subscribers unfailingly receive further joy from your letters page in the following edition. This time we had a bumper crop of letters from wonderful readers who respond in a manner that imitates a newly released trout taking the fly! Mark Slim Kington Magna, Dorset Having read the somewhat vitriolic attacks on Robert Gibbons by your readers…

AS the two teams lined up, it became obvious who were driven-game chaps and who’d been raised rough-shooting. We admired politely their pheasant, partridge, grouse, pigeon and mallard and smiled at the attempt to add a salvaged road sign to their tally. But honestly, it could not compete with a line-up that embraced all their species but also included teal, woodcock, hare, rabbit, snipe, moorhen, three species of corvid, a damp rat and – a moment of quiet triumph here – a salmon and trout, hoiked out from a small burn on a smuggler rod. True, the salmon was a parr but when it comes to “Various” competitions, all is fair so long as it’s both legal and edible or verminous. There was, of course, the usual inquest. Had the…

THE Kent Wildfowling & Conservation Association (KWCA) is the answer to many a shooter’s prayer. With driven game-shooting requiring ever deeper pockets, the KWCA supplies its members with a formidable array of shooting opportunities for an annual membership fee of just £247. And with 60 areas of shooting, the KWCA can offer not only wildfowling but also pigeon-shooting, rough-shooting, a hunting facility for those with air guns and coarse-fishing. Furthermore, this fee includes BASC membership. The KWCA has a culture of offering sport for all within its increasingly influential sporting and conservation ethic. The club has amassed 13,000 acres of shooting rights and some of the UK’s best sport since it was founded in 1953. Alan Jarrett has been the club’s driving force for 30 years. A businessman, Jarrett became…

• Set a budget. • Don’t over-restore. For, example, original but faded colour hardening on an action may look better than bright brush polishing (or new colour hardening). • If re-blacking barrels, consider refreshing the engraving of the maker’s name. • Replacing screws or re-cutting and re-engraving heads can make a huge difference to final look at only modest extra cost. • If you need to re-proof the gun, consider extending chambers to 2 3/4in as pressures are no greater and value as well as versatility will be enhanced. • Consider modern techniques such as laser micro-welding (as offered by Carr’s Welding Technologies) to repair pitting on lock plates and action furniture. • Trigger guards and action furniture may, like screws, be re-engraved without much cost but to good cosmetic…

STANDING head and shoulders above its crow, jackdaw, jay, magpie and rook cousins, the raven ( Corvus corax ) is undoubtedly the king of corvids. According to ecologist, the late Derek Ratcliffe (1929-2005), it is a bird which ,“perhaps more than any other – has been invested by humans with symbolic and legendary meaning and mystery”. Victorian historians reinforce this. In 1842 Henry Godwin maintained, “The raven owes its security to a mixture of the law and the tradition.” Despite this, as Mark Cocker and Richard Mabey quite rightly point out in Birds Britannica (2005), “Modern life has drained the bird of its symbolic significance.” By focusing on past symbolism, I wish to consider how the legends, law, mysteries and cultural meaning of ravens have influenced their current status and…

THE Birds of America is an exceptionally big book, printed on sheets measuring 39 1/2in by 261/2in. Until 2013 it held the record for the highest-priced printed book sold at auction, fetching US$11,500,000 in 2010. The flamingo is one of Audubon’s largest subjects. The image is visually striking but the bird’s fabulous pink plumage and the curvature of its back, neck and legs are all true to nature. Edited extract from Rare Treasures from the Library of the Natural History Museum, published by Natural History Museum, £30…

I HARDLY dare mention the word “sport”. England’s rugby Wold Cup bid was summed up by an email I received headed: “England Prepare for the Quarter Finals,” with a photo of the team lined up in all their muscular majesty and facing a large-screen television. England has lost the latest Test series against Pakistan, but I suppose we can at least be thankful for Lewis Hamilton’s third World Championship, although – and I don’t know if it is just me – there seems to be something too clinical about Formula One these days: buy a great driver, put him in the best car and the result follows almost inevitably. However, the market for sporting ephemera flourishes. Take the All Blacks jersey that sold at Rogers Jones on 9 October. Estimated…

AH well, here it comes again, bloody Christmas. There’s no avoiding it, though I do my best, vile curmudgeon that I am. I swear it gets earlier every year. I was still wearing the sun-cream of August when I spotted my first Christmas cards and comestibles on sale in the supermarkets. There were festive mince pies with a “best before” date of 30 September. I mean, what the blazes is that all about? Still, it gives us an excuse to loosen the belt buckle and get our snouts in the trough and our hands on some decent hooch. Fizz is essential, of course. Majestic, as ever, has fantastic deals on champagnes and sparkling wines. It offers sale or return, so over-order. Besides, you can always hang on to whatever you’re…

The sale of charity Christmas cards is estimated to raise £50 million but there is another way buyers can help a good cause. A woodland conservation charity is hoping to plant 6,000 trees across the UK following the success of last year’s Christmas Card Recycling Scheme. For every thousand cards dropped at M&S stores for recycling in January, the Woodland Trust will plant a new tree in the UK. Last year 6,255,833 Christmas cards were put into special bins outside M&S stores enabling 6,236 trees to be planted across the UK. Since 2012, when M&S took over the recycling scheme, 32 million cards have been collected and more than 32,000 trees planted. There will be bins in most stores from 2 to 31 January. “The beauty of this scheme is…

DARK CHOCOLATE COCO CHOCOLATIER Haggis spices infuse this 64% cocoa confection. Price £4 Tel 0131 228 4526 www .cocochocolate.co.uk CRISPS MACKIE’S Haggis with crunch. Price £1.50 for 150g Tel 01821 641250 www .mackiescrisps.com TRADITIONAL HAGGIS MACSWEEN Simply the best. Price £9 for 907g Tel 01360 440066 www .haggisuk.co.uk MUSTARD FORTNUM & MASON Ideal haggis accompaniment. Price £4 Tel 020 7734 8040 www .fortnumandmason.com THREEBIRD HAGGIS MACSWEEN Grouse pheasant and duck. Make into Scotch eggs. Price £5 Tel 01360 440066 www .haggisuk.co.uk WHISKY GLENFARCLAS 105 That’s cask strength! Toast the Chieftain o’ the puddin’ race. Price £55 Tel 0800 280 2440 www .bbr.com…

YOU are never short of statistics this time of the year. Knight Frank has punched the data on the Prime Country Review, while Savills crunched the moguls on its Ultra Prime Ski Resorts Index. At home Knight Frank reports that buyers are digesting stamp duty change and finding it a bit chewy, while canny British skiers, says Savills, are jumping on the weak euro and investing in the slopes of France, Austria and Italy. Despite UK property tax reforms slowing activity, prime country house prices still rose by 2.7% over the year to September 2015. Rupert Sweeting, head of Knight Frank Country, says, “The two stumbling blocks have been the introduction of higher rates of stamp duty, which means that at £10 million, a buyer may be paying a further…

THE ARK Bourton, Much Wenlock, Shropshire Agent Carter Jonas Tel 01939 210171 Guide price £280,000 This is an opportunity to create a contemporary five-bedroom property from a Victorian brick barn that was once part of an agricultural estate. The property, 11 miles from Bridgnorth, sits in a secluded, elevated position looking across to Shropshire’s highest peak, Brown Clee Hill, and beyond. There is planning permission for the conversion, although the existing plans could be amended to suit the purchaser’s tastes. Currently the property is designed to be an open-plan conversion with a new roof. The proposed development costs are estimated at £600,000. The Ark is thought to date from around 1880. It is not listed but is considered of historic merit with its air-vent pattern and bowstring roof trusses. The…

’TIS the season of country sports. Hunting is well and truly underway and I have been looking enviously at photos on Facebook of happy smiling friends and steaming muddy horses. My horses are also muddy, but through inaction and wallowing rather than galloping and jumping. I’m hopeful that I can get a day or two in at the tail end of the season in March, post-baby arrival. One horse is in and being kept fit in anticipation. For the same reason, there will be no shooting of anything for me this season – photos of pegs in the ground and smiling dogs only reinforcing my own real life FOMO (fear of missing out). No guns for me – the crack of a shotgun fired by self would be so loud…

POSSIBLY the greatest skill in using a shotgun is applying forward allowance – “leading” your bird to make due allowance for its velocity in flight. In the words of the late Ed Scherer, an American shooting instructor, skeet-shooting champion and fighter pilot, “If you are shooting and want to do the biz, shoot where the bird is going and not where it is.” This subject has inspired countless less erudite comments, hundreds of articles (most of them foolishly partisan) and almost as many book chapters. There are so many opinions given by “experts” trying to sell their way of shooting that it gets to be quite confusing. Most ballistic pundits suggest that one should “swing through” from behind in one way or another or that one must “maintain” a lead.…

THERE was a time when “doing-up” a cherished old gun was not that big a deal. There were plenty of good, bench-trained craftsmen around, costs were acceptable and the amount of effort required by the owner to achieve a competent restoration was not that great. You gave a good man or firm your gun and it came back in pristine condition without too much of a dent in the wallet. But things have changed. There are not as many competent tradesmen as there were, fewer still who can handle all aspects of restoration, and costs and job times have risen considerably. All this means that any restoration must begin with research and realistic assessment. Instead of spending a thousand or two on grandpa’s old firestick, would you, for example, be…

When one of the Grips died in 1841, Charles Dickens sent his pet to the taxidermist and had him mounted (picture inset). An auction and donation saw Grip finding a new home at the Free Library of Philadelphia Rare Book Department, where he remains today. Dickens’s pet inspired the fictional Grip in Barnaby Rudge (1841) and influenced Edgar Allan Poe’s poem The Raven (1845). Poe’s raven is used as a prophesying supernatural messenger, responding only, “Nevermore”. Hugin (Thought) and Munin (Mind) looked into the future for Nordic god Odin. King Arthur is said to have transformed into a raven. Hardey, Thor, Odin, Gwyllum, Cedric, Hugin and Munin are the captive ravens currently living at the Tower of London. The members of the “Unkindness of Ravens” at the Tower are cared…

IT is rare for the national collection of arms and armour to acquire a shotgun that is unusual and has a literary association. However, the Royal Armouries recently succeeded in acquiring such a firearm at a Holt’s auction. The gun has an association that resonates with the glamour and derring-do of one of the great British fictional heroes – the dashing flying ace James Bigglesworth, known as Biggles, created by ex-RAF pilot and author WE Johns in 1932. This dashing character was to have many adventures, in the air and on the ground, through the Thirties, Forties and Fifties. He appeared in more than a hundred books and his impact was far-reaching – he inspired generations of schoolboys to take to the air. During the Second World War, Johns’ books…

TOUSSAINT COFFEE LIQUEUR (£21 per 50cl, Whisky Exchange) Skip the espresso; move straight to this rum/Arabica coffee liqueur. 2012 ST EMILION (£19, fromvineyardsdirect) Superb merlot-based claret from St Emilion’s most famous estate. BERRY BROS RESERVE WHITE NV (£8, Berry Bros) A blended house white of remarkable style, far better than the price suggests. 2012 MONTES ALPHA CABERNET SAUVIGNON (£13, Hennings) One of the best, most versatile reds around. DE BORTOLI “OLD BOYS” 21 BARREL AGED TAWNY (£22 per 50cl, Oddbins) Utterly superb and moreish port-a-like from Australia. 2008 CONTINO RIOJA RESERVA (£20, Tesco) Gloriously mature and mellow and spot on with the festive main course.…

IT’S not often that something different turns out to be something interesting. As a general rule, the bolt-action rifle is a very satisfactory piece of engineering and those who try to mess around with it do so at their peril. There is, nevertheless, a strong demand for take-down rifles with interchangeable barrels, and the challenge presented in providing such an option while maintaining accuracy is one that few manufacturers have mastered. Blaser, of course, with its straight-pull bolt, leads the field in such innovation but innovation of this nature is usually expensive and the price of a Blaser is many times that of a simple American sporting rifle. The Thompson Center Dimension aims to provide the option of a take-down rifle with interchangeable barrels but at an affordable price, and…

WINTER CABIN COOKING: DUMPLINGS, FONDUE, GLUHWEIN AND OTHER WINTER WARMERS by Lizzie Kamenetzky Ryland Peters & Small, £20 IF ever a book were written to make you reach for the laptop and book a last-minute spot on the slopes, this is it. When boot is clipped to ski the downhill bit that follows is fun. But it is the food that sustains and entertains and evokes the memories (as well as the odd vin chaud ). Kamenetzky has gathered 150 recipes consisting of the best Alpine food and ski-holiday favourites. They are beautifully presented with photographs that ooze rustic charm. You can practically smell the cheese and the woodsmoke. Alongside traditional takes on tartiflette and fondue, a venison and rabbit terrine, wonderful schnitzel and perfect cakes for tea are featured.…

STUDENT GAME CHEF North Hertfordshire College student Jack Gates won the 2015 Game to Eat Student Chef of the Year award with his whole roasted partridge with beetroot and wild mushrooms in a red wine jus. A dozen students made it to the final cook-off in London. SPOT A TURNSTONE? The BTO is seeking volunteers who can identify birds such as the turnstone (pictured above) for a survey of the waterbirds using the UK’s coastal areas. The survey runs until 31 January; www.bto.org. CORDINGS OPENS Cordings has opened its first new shop in 176 years in Harrogate. The premises, over three floors of the Yorkshire spa town’s Westminster Arcade (pictured above), are bigger than the company’s Piccadilly store. To contact the Opening Shots News Desk send an email to…

3 CAMBRIDGESHIRE HARRIERS HUNT CLUB POINT-TO-POINT (first race 11.30am), Cottenham, near Cambridge, tel 01223 860291. 57 OXFORD FARMING CONFERENCE Politicians and farmers discuss issues affecting farming in the Oxford University exam halls. For details, visit www.ofc.org.uk. 710 MAYFAIR ANTIQUES & FINE ART FAIR Marriott Hotel, Grosvenor Square, London W1; www.mayfairfair.com. 817 LONDON BOAT SHOW ExCel, E16. For tickets, visit www.londonboatshow.com. 10 NORTH CORNWALL POINT-TO-POINT Wadebridge, Cornwall, tel 01208 623350. 10 YORKSHIRE AREA POINT-TO-POINT Sheriff Hutton, near York, tel 07581 512246. 12 RIVER THURSO OPENING CEREMONY From the Ulbster Arms Hotel, Halkirk, Caithness to the river-bank. For details, call 01431 821102. 15 RIVER TAY OPENING CEREMONY From the Kenmore Hotel, Kenmore, Perthshire to the river-bank. For more details, call 01887 830205. 17 SILVERTON POINT-TO-POINT Black Forest Lodge, near Exeter, Devon. For…

WHEN one of England’s most famous escarpments, Wenlock Edge, provides a shoot’s feature drive, it’s easy to take high birds for granted. Buildwas Park shoot lies in the Shropshire Hills, between the River Severn and Much Wenlock. Its owner, Richard Perkins, feels blessed to have found such a wonderful spot, although it wasn’t easy: “We bought the estate 20 years ago after a big search. The original house had been pulled down and we converted the present house from the stable block and coach-house. It dates from 1710 and the architect was Smith of Warwick. “The original estate is actually very old and there had been a shoot on it about 50 years earlier, but the people who had the estate were not very keen, so we had to set…

IN these days when docile people are driven, like grouse across the hills, by the modern puritans of an attempted “new age”, screeching their selective prohibitions against every reasonable pleasure, we may remember the great philosopher Bertrand Russell, who loved smoking a pipe, which no doubt helped him to think great thoughts, until he died, aged 97. He even told a story in an interview, to confuse and outrage the abstemious, about the way pipe-smoking had once saved his life. He had been a passenger in a flying boat in Norway and, as an inveterate smoker, he was banished to the back. The craft crashed while arriving in Trondheim harbour. Everyone at the front was killed. The smokers survived. I am sure that, as well as wicked, ironic humour, there…

TAKE two or more game-shooters and sooner or later talk will turn to guns: whether to use a side-by-side or over-and-under, 12- or 20-bore. I was involved in such a debate in 1982 on East Falkland, where I was driving a flight of Gazelle helicopters. My aircrew and I had from time to time been sighting large numbers of upland geese grazing none too far from our operating base. A plan was hatched to bag a brace. I had decided against bringing a 12-bore; nor were any of my flight better placed. A suggestion that we shoot them on the wing from a helicopter did not take. And ruling out the self-loading rifle took scarcely longer; 7.62 high velocity rounds at short range are not wholly compatible with meat destined…