Shooting Times & Country Magazine
Those glory days of the Glorious Twelfth
Remembering times when aristocratic families would take grooms, gamekeepers, footmen and dogs on the train from London to Scotland
In 1990 two paintings by the realist artist George Earl were discovered in a Liverpool pub. Going North, Kings Cross Station and Coming South, Perth Station, painted in 1893, were commissioned by Sir Andrew Barclay Walker. These two artworks give a valuable insight into the life of an upper-class family going to, and returning from, a stalking, shooting and fishing trip to Scotland.
Going North shows the party waiting for the 10am train to Perth, and depicts the wealthy passengers, their servants, young daughter with her Indian nanny, a gamekeeper, grooms, footmen and dogs, on their way to a sporting country retreat. The dogs appear to be setters and pointers, which means that the game was walked-up and grooms would indicate not just the use of garrons, the sturdy ponies for deer extraction, but also carriage transport from station to estate.
Coming South, Perth Station shows a successful trip home to London. Not just antlers but salmon along with red and black grouse are shown. One can only begin to imagine what state they would be in by the time they reached London, in those days before refrigeration.
The annual pilgrimage north for the Glorious Twelfth was a common pre-season sight at London stations. For many years the well-heeled landowners and guests would make their way to the heather by train and horse-drawn carriage, later by train and car. Indeed, it was not just to the heather, but to rivers and roaring stags. Landowners who summered in London would be drawn back to the fine sport in Scotland, Northern England, Wales and Ireland. All four countries once boasted a healthy
(above) shootable surplus of grouse. Should you wish to travel back far enough, black grouse were to be found on Wimbledon Common and I am told that Cannock Chase in Staffordshire held the bag record for them. I wonder what the keepers and Guns of old would think of Wimbledon Common now?
In Ireland and Wales, where Guns once travelled for grouse and woodcock, grouse numbers have plummeted since the 19th and early 20th centuries. The loss of gamekeepers in Ireland meant that even where moors were not planted with conifers, overgrazed or harvested for commercial peat,
the birds still failed to survive. Lack of predator control and heather management has all but seen them disappear, along with successfully nesting curlew and not surprisingly, ground-nesting hen harriers. Overpredation is having a shocking effect upon all ground-nesting birds.
In Kerry, where I spend much of my time, good seasonal bags of grouse were once to be had, and on one shoot near the Parknasilla Hotel I believe over 100 woodcock were shot by five Guns on a single drive in the early part of the last century.
It is this most obvious correlation between grouse survival and gamekeeper management that makes me despair that grouse shoots attract so much hostility and criticism. We have examples of what happens not just to red and black grouse, but many other ground-nesting species when keepers are removed, yet still the attacks continue. If you want to see curlew fledge, listen to snipe drumming, see black game lekking or many other declining species successfully breed, it is to a keepered grouse moor you must go. Crass stupidity for what can only be the wrong reasons will spell the end of so many species in need of help should these bitterly misguided fools succeed in their attacks upon the best-managed nature reserves in the country.
Edwardian shooting parties
Closer to the home counties, as driven game became the favoured sport, the Edwardian shooting parties would go from one estate to the next for pheasant and partridge shooting. My grandfather remembered guests shooting Sandringham and Ken Hill, where Guns stayed at the big house and shot for several days back-to-back before moving on to the next venue. There were lavish parties and fine dining – heaven help the keepers who failed to fill the game room.
The then Prince of
Wales gave the aristocracy an alternative sport to foxhunting, his somewhat rotund figure was not best suited for pursuit of ‘the inedible’, but his love of driven game made the sport very fashionable.
Other than big-game hunting by a small number of the very wealthy, there was no great emphasis upon travelling abroad for driven game. Only Hungary could compete, or indeed better us, for grey partridges and though the Continent excelled with deer, chamois and wild boar, it is to Britain that monarchs and foreign dignitaries came to shoot gamebirds. The excesses of the aristocracy are well-documented; labour was cheap, fieldsports provided employment both directly and indirectly for thousands, and to a lesser extent they still do.
How different today as so many Guns extend their season with a February flight to shoot partridge in Spain or doves in Argentina. Driven pheasants in Poland, Ireland, France and the Czech Republic are all available, often at competitive prices. Shooting, fishing and stalking can be reached anywhere in the world in a fraction of the time and trouble it took the family depicted in Earl’s painting to reach Scotland. Where once the wealthy took a train, a horse-drawn carriage and an entourage, they now take a private plane and Range Rover.
Bags used to be much more dependent upon the seasonal fluctuations of wild stock. Guns now order a number and expect, indeed are more or less guaranteed, sufficient shooting to attain that number. I have noticed perhaps a slight reticence to travel to the West Country for driven game by at least some of the Guns I know. Perhaps a slight ‘tightening of the belt’ or an age thing. Whatever the reason, some seem to prefer what is on offer closer to home.
For those without the luxury of a helicopter, further afield shooting trips usually entail two nights away and a hefty hotel bill. Many shoots near the home counties or the Midlands have upped their game, literally. Perhaps the trend for out-ofshot birds is gradually being replaced by good sporting birds that are within shot for mere mortals. A ‘there and back in a day’ or just one sociable night away would appear to have its merits.
The upheaval of all concerned in Earl’s paintings can only be imagined, the staff and luggage for an extended stay was a great feat of organisation. Today, tweeds and waterproofs are put in a suitcase and you drive or fly. Loaders are provided and whatever you have forgotten will be supplied. But what excitement those of yesteryear must have enjoyed; the planning, preparation and anticipation, it must have been wonderful for all, staff included.
“Landowners who summered in London would be drawn back to the fine sport”