Shooting Times & Country Magazine
THE COUNTRY STORE, SAWSTON
When you imagine your favourite gunshop, you probably think of an old chocolate-box shopfront with dark-stained, wooden-clad windows and a product display of cartridge bags, gun slips, folding shooting sticks, hats and maybe a few stuffed gamebirds. This was the image I remember of the gunshops I grew up visiting as a boy in the Hertfordshire Chilterns. Around the time I got my first air rifle — a BSA something or other with a break barrel from Frederick Beesley’s at Little Chalfont — Fred Webb purchased Thorntons gunshop, based on Burleigh Street, Cambridge, to add to his existing pet food business.
In its current location, The Country Store isn’t your average picture-postcard shop on the high street of a sleepy rural village. It’s situated on an industrial estate in the village of Sawston, near RAF Duxford. It needs to be in a large commercial building because, although my interest in the establishment is the gunshop section, the pet food area stocks a vast selection of everything a rural person could want for their companions, be they horse, hound or humble garden bird.
The shop is a 40-minute drive from me, but it came to be my regular and favourite shop when I met the manager, David Beer, some 10 years ago. David started at the shop as a lad in 1996 and, apart from a brief spell as a car salesman, has been there ever since. Most gunshops in East Anglia only cater for the game shooter, but with David’s passion for deerstalking, the shelves are well stocked with around 100 full-bore rifles from brands such as Blaser, Sauer, Mauser, Sako and Tikka, in addition to the racks of shotguns from Beretta,
“With David’s passion for deerstalking, the shelves are well stocked with rifles”
Browning and Rizzini, to name but a few. They carry a minimum stock of 500 guns in addition to air rifles and pistols. Optics are well stocked, too, including those from Swarovski, Kahles and Zeiss.
As you walk into the unit past pallets of compost, which was a big seller during the lockdowns, the distinctively sweet smell of animal feed hits you and your eyes are drawn to the baskets of dog treats on either side of the feed counter: pigs’ ears, large beef bones and those rawhide dog chews with knots in either end.
With the feed area stretching away from you, immediately on your left is the door to the gunroom, with the clothing, air rifles and accessories section located in a room on the right of the building. David’s
The clothing and accessories side of things is run by the double act of Michael and Phil, who bicker and wind each other up while serving a stream of customers. Michael is able to size people up for Härkila and Seeland clothing as soon as they enter and Phil’s specialist subject is rifle ammo, of which they stock an amazing amount from all brands, both lead and copper. While the building may not be traditional, the service and products certainly are.
It’s particularly worth a visit if you are looking for your first rifle, as they always have a great selection of new and used, enabling you to decide what you like rather than buying the only brand on sale. As an added bonus, most days in summer you can stand outside and watch old aircraft circle the area as they fly in and out of Duxford. Guns, clothing, dog food and shooting accessories, all to the sound of Merlin engines in the sky. What’s not to like?
The Country Store, Unit 12a Sawston Trade Park, London Road, Pampisford, Cambridge CB22 3EE 01223 837977; thecountrystore.co.uk