In the deep at MURTON
ANY visitor to Sutton Bank top will be blown away – literally, on some days – by the stunning views that stretch for miles on either side of an escarpment that is said to divide North Yorkshire into two halves. A narrow band of wild hills sandwiched between heather moorland and low-lying vale curl northwards through a rugged landscape that has been hunted for more than 300 years by the Bilsdale hounds and is now home to a number of celebrated high-bird shoots. Some of the best fall under the umbrella of Mount St John Sporting (MSJS), set up in 2010 to offer topclass shooting across some 25,000 acres of spectacular North Yorkshire countryside. Responsibility for the smooth running of the operation is vested in former gamekeeper turned shoot manager Trevor Bailey, who oversees 11 full-time gamekeepers and arranges some 200 days’ shooting each year for private clients.
With a pool of around 75 regular beaters to draw on, plus three separate picking-up teams and a dozen staff to service West Acre Lodge, MSJS is the area’s biggest employer. The business may be corporate, cutting edge and thoroughly modern but there is something timeless about the landscape awaiting guns on this glorious October morning as they emerge from sumptuous West Acre Lodge, recently converted to accommodate shoot parties in comfort and style. We drive up a steep escarpment through tunnels of orange woodland to a bleak arable plateau more than a thousand feet high. Those visiting for the first time are taken aback when we plunge over the edge into a lost world of limestone gills and straggling wild thorns that comprise the heart of the Murton shoot – head keeper Chris Atkinson likens the sensation to the similarly impressive Ashcombe estate in Dorset. This is a landscape screaming high birds and good shooting from every craggy slope – and successive owners and their keepers have been providing exactly that inside this vast, hidden crater for more than 30 years.
The team shooting double guns at Murton Grange today are part of a roving syndicate headed by Simon Isbister, who are trying out North Yorkshire partridges and pheasants for the first time. “We’ve had some wonderful shooting in the Westcountry,” Ibister says, “but we all fancied a bit of a change this year so asked Churchills to find us a couple of days in Yorkshire. Everyone has been pleasantly surprised by how easy it has been to get here – I
left my London office at 4.30pm and arrived at the lodge three hours later.”
Welcoming a new team is an exciting prospect for the manager of any commercial shoot but it’s not without challenges, for he must assess the guns’ abilities quickly and arrange drives so the agreed bag is achieved with birds that are as testing as possible. For this reason, the first drive is often the easiest of the day.
The top guns are positioned on the floor of a dry limestone gorge, looking into the face of a steep, clear-felled bank where they will have plenty of time to gauge each shot; the lower guns, however, are hemmed in by tall trees on stands that will offer exciting snap-shooting and demand quick reflexes. Clear blue sky at the top of the line is soon speckled brown by successive waves of approaching birds. Those that fly across the narrow valley present straightforward targets but more than half tilt wings in deference to bright sunshine and swoop downhill fast as hunting sparrowhawks. These birds draw fire all down the line, testing lower guns to the full as they lose altitude but gather speed through tree tops still in leaf. There is a large stock of birds at this early stage of the season and guns must be selective, for it has been made clear that partridges are the main quarry today and all but the highest pheasants should be spared. But after the pickers-up have done their work, there are more than a handful of long-tailed ones in the bag. Bailey has noticed them, too, and after a
North Yorkshire’s rugged terrain challenged a new team in 2015, as Adrian Dangar reports. Photographs by Ann Curtis
Parts of Deep Gill drive are so steep they remain shaded on the brightest of days
quiet word with the team leader says, “You’ve got to try and handle it as best as you can but I think you’ll see a difference in the next drive.” Before then there is time for a glass of champagne – and what better cause for celebration than simply being here in this enchanting landscape beneath clear blue skies and warm autumn sunshine?
“I hear we are going to need binoculars for this one,” jokes one of the guns on reaching his peg for the flagship Deep Gill drive, an offshoot of the main valley that is so steep parts remain shaded throughout the brightest day. Woodpigeon flit across the sky overhead, glinting white in strong sunshine and way beyond the reach of any gun. The game soon begins to flow: singles, doubles, coveys and packs of partridge that hurtle fast and high down the line. This team found form while shooting at
Duncombe Park yesterday and they perform accordingly, none better than Ibister, who locks onto bird after bird with lethal results. After the drive, we are told that as the season progresses birds are increasingly likely to soar straight across the valley from high top to high top, though few have chosen that route today.
Cover crops sited beyond the valley tops are the key to holding and retaining game here and there are currently some 180 acres of annual and perennial crops grown specifically for gamebirds on the estate, including 12 acres of quinoa that lend the next drive its name. As it happens, the crop is not needed for the guns have shot so well that the remainder of the day must be devoted to showing only the most testing of birds. Bailey is taking no chances, however, and has the beaters lined out and ready for the command to bring the quinoa into the beat should the drive threaten to disappoint. At this time of year the greatest challenge on a commercial shoot with a long season ahead is often to contain numbers without compromising the sport. “We’ve agreed a certain bag and it’s up to us to manage it,” Bailey says. “When commercial shooting took off in the ’80s guns often achieved the agreed bag early on in the day. This was putting everyone off because they ended up with a hefty overage bill that left a sour taste in the mouth. Nowadays the onus is on us to make sure guns shoot what we’ve agreed and also enjoy a full day’s sport.”
I stand with the pickers-up during this drive and learn that most have been helping Bailey at the various shoots he has been associated with in this part of Yorkshire for more than 30 years. As the season hots up there are often several shoots taking place each day on ground rented by MSJS and, for this reason, Bailey relies on three separate teams, one for each of the three big estates in the portfolio. The Murton Grange regulars include professional gundog breeders and trainers, an exhaulier and a retired electricity supplier.
Against a backdrop of tumbling birds we talk country topics, for there is no picking-up of game permitted during any drive that is part of a MSJS day. Not only does this allow guns a chance to work their own dogs at the end of the drive, it is also a policy that ensures the bag is not unfairly swelled by pegged birds. This can happen all too easily on a warm, early-season day such as this, when birds like to rest after a long and tiring flight. The extra time gives healthy and unharmed ones the chance to recover and make good their escape before the dogs begin to work.
After heartening and universal praise for this magazine, our huddled chat is cut short by the horn’s long blast. This is the cue for the pickers-up to release so many dogs that the effect is rather like a pack of exuberant hounds leaving the meet. Half of them sweep one side of the valley and half the other, with a mixture of cockers and labradors that hunt the steep banks with accuracy and skill. Guest Andrew Fishman is given space to work his handsome black flat-coated retriever, Storm, which on non-shooting days accompanies his owner to a lawyer’s office in the West End of London.
It feels strange to bid a temporary goodbye to the lost world for lunch inside a smartly converted farm building back on the high plateau, after which we return for the final drive an hour later, during which the birds are higher than any we have seen all day. Sport is fast, furious and intense as a single continuous flush soars over yet another steep-sided valley, behind which the sun has already disappeared. Small as starlings, these brown specks offer a sensational finale to a hugely successful day, during which head keeper Chris Atkinson has deployed all his skills to show just the right quantity of really testing birds. Everyone is smiling afterwards, none more so than Fishman, who has executed a number of peerless right-and-lefts. Ed Walters from EJ Churchill’s, who have introduced this team to the delights of sporting North Yorkshire, is delighted that the day has lived up to the expectations of a discerning team. The Westcountry had better look to its laurels, for I somehow think this group of friends will be heading back north again for their shooting in 2016.
At the horn’s long blast, the pickers-up release so many dogs that the effect is rather like a pack of exuberant hounds leaving the meet