Broomhall in Fife, fit for kings
Parkland and surrounding farms offer both testing birds and history at this home of relatives of Robert the Bruce
Rory Knight Bruce reports
The farm name here, Gallowridge Hill, spoke eerily of hangings in an earlier time
Just south of Dunfermline Abbey in Fife, last resting place of King Robert the Bruce, the land ebbs gently down to the Firth of Forth at Charlestown, with views to the north of the Highland Line and, over the water, towards the majesty of Hopetoun House. This is the seat of King Robert’s descendent, the 11th Earl of Elgin, 37th Chief of the Name of Bruce, who, at 94, still presides with vigour and detail over his family shoot set within the parkland and farms of the Broomhall estate.
It was for just such a 250-bird day for family and friends that I joined Lord Elgin in late November to enjoy not just well-presented partridges and pheasants over five drives but also to learn how, in the future, days will be available for visiting guns. The new Forth road bridge, The Queensferry Crossing, is on the doorstep, Edinburgh airport is a 20-minute drive away and to stay they recommend the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh or Gleneagles, a 10-minute ride in a helicopter.
What makes this shoot unique is the sense of Scottish and family history that surrounds it. Then there is the collection of casts of the sublime Elgin Marbles, which adorn Broomhall’s main hall, where future visiting guns will be able to lunch or dine, hosted by any one of Lord Elgin’s amiable and highly entertaining children. A cosy shoot lodge has been established in the old brickworks on the estate, where we gathered for a 9.30am start. All vehicles are left here and guns are transported by a wagon that, interestingly, does not possess any windows.
Lord Elgin, whose godfather, Sir Alexander Gibb, was the model for Sir Edward Leithen in John Buchan’s John Macnab, has his own enclosed buggy from which to follow proceedings closely, driven by his daughter, Georgiana. He gave a comprehensive safety talk, concluding, with good humour, at the drawing of pegs: “They are numbered one to eight. If you draw nine or 10, you stay here.”
Of the eight guns, three were Bruces, Lady Jane Kaplan was from the neighbouring Dalmeny estate and the others were good family friends drawn from all parts of Scotland. The first drive, Crow Wood, with Dunfermline Abbey in prospect, took us to the highest point on the estate. The farm name here, Gallowridge Hill, spoke eerily of hangings in an earlier time. “The tenants don’t seem to stop long here,” Lady Georgiana Bruce told me, adding to the mystery.
kilts and woodcock
Cold weather and a slate-grey sky with peeping sunshine reminded guns that shooting in Scotland requires warm clothing, although Alexander Moncrieff shot all day in shirt sleeves and Charles Iain Wolrige Gordon of Esslemont wore his distinctive tweed kilt. Live on pegs, pigeons could be taken but Alexander Bruce, Lord Elgin’s third son, sportingly left a resident woodcock, to the disappointment of his French guests standing by him, offering cries of “Bžcasse!”
The birds here, driven out of a woodland strip to guns standing in wild barley, came at a good height of 30yd to 40yd and were taken before and behind. There was plenty of time to sight them and Alexander Bruce was soon hitting his stride, as was Alexander Moncrieff, whose small black spaniel, Lola, worked hard and effectively all day. Birds came singly and there were three good
flushes. “We have also reintroduced grey partridge,” Lord Elgin told me, at the end of this 40-minute drive. They can be taken on some of the 14 drives the shoot offers, with no drive shot more than once a fortnight.
Headkeeper Pete Smith has been at Broomhall for 16 seasons (we had met previously when he was keeper on the Kinpurnie estate in Angus for the late Sir James Cayzer) and he has a good relationship with the terrain and the 25 or so beaters and pickers-up who come regularly to Broomhall. One of them, Andrew Smith from Burntisland on the Forth, is much in demand as a labrador trainer and the six dogs he had out, one only 11 months old, were a credit to their trainer for nose, stillness and obedience.
“There was a plan in 1911 to build houses on this part of the estate for the expansion of Dunfermline,” Lord Elgin continued. After the war the land could not be farmed in case it was needed for housing. “It still hasn’t happened, although we did get a one-off compensation payment of £1,700 in 1947,” he says, ruefully.
We then travelled the 10 minutes back through the park where the next three drives would take place around lakes and quarries, the latter from which the stone for Broomhall was hewn in the 18th century. On the way we passed houses that had once formed an ancient settlement called Gellet, complete with an inn, home to coal and lime workers. “A man with a metal detector brought me a George III silver crown the other day,” Lord Elgin told me as we passed by.
on the water’s edge
The second, Lake Drive, saw guns placed right on the water’s edge in foxholes, with a cliff over the water, ribboned with beech and rhododendrons to hold the birds. The cliff height gave the birds a natural advantage and the guns a significant challenge on this testing drive.
“It’s an exhilarating drive in the most beautiful spot,” said Lady Jane Kaplan, who shot well here, at the end of this half-hour drive. As befits the daughter of Lord Rosebery, her sock flashes are primrose (her family name) with rose hoops (from the Rothschild
relations). These form the famous racing colours with which the fifth Earl of Rosebery, Archibald Primrose, won the Derby in 1894 with Ladas, whilst Prime Minister.
Quick reactions are needed on this drive, with birds coming high over and down the line offering great sport. The many dogs that were out with the pickers-up had their work cut out in the water, meticulously retrieving all fallen birds.
After elevenses in a tranquil glade, I embarked with the guns into the windowless Reynolds Boughton RB 44 light utility army truck, driven by Richard Hunter, which brought us, after five minutes, to the Pedlar’s Leap, the third morning drive. This again is a quick-thinking drive amongst 300-yearold beech woodland with the birds being flighted off a high escarpment. Angus Macpherson shot well here as a back gun, as did Adam Bruce, Edward Bruce (Lord Elgin’s nephew), Keith Falconer and Alexander Moncrieff, under the watchful eye of Lord Elgin. Here, the story goes, in earlier times, a pedlar was chased by locals and leapt the gorge. “It was a little narrower in his day,” Lord Elgin believes.
Behind this drive, on the Firth of Forth, is the small village of Limekilns, from where lime was transported from the estate all over the world and helped power the agricultural and industrial revolutions. I walked down to look at it as, in 1981, when the Lanarkshire & Renfrewshire hunt met here, a fox was run to ground in a limekiln, bolted, and ran into the Royal Navy Dockyard at nearby Rosyth.
The young whipper-in at the time, Patrick Martin, who went on to hunt the Bicester with such success, scrambled though the perimeter fence, collected 10½ couple of hounds and was promptly arrested by the Military Police for trespass. “They were not pleased to see me and the CO was apoplectic,” Martin recalls. “The CO later had to apologise as it was pointed out the hounds had done sterling work in finding a gap in the security fence.”
The final morning drive, Lake Return, involved several guns going through ‘The Hole in the Wall’, a hewn granite portal created for Lord Elgin’s grandfather. “It was said of him that he was 5ft tall, 5ft wide and 5ft full of common sense,” Lord Elgin told me.
Here, with their backs to the water, there was good shooting from Keith Falconer, who owns the Adelphi distillery on the Ardnamurchan Peninsula, and Edward Bruce. High birds were dropped into the lake and all retrieved. But with cold rain briefly setting in, it was a welcome return to the shoot lodge for lunch. “We can shoot through or stop for lunch depending on the bag and what the weather is doing,” Pete Smith told me. The lunch of beef wellington and claret was one to which every shoot worthy of its name should aspire.
skill and generosity
With the bag hovering around the 200 mark, it was decided in the afternoon to push two drives into one, The Cocket Hat, which proved most effective. Seldom have I seen two brothers, Adam and Alexander Bruce, shoot with such skill and generosity to each other, which they did from behind a beech hedge and cottage housing their old nanny (who was not in residence). I was reminded in watching them of John Barbour’s epic 14thcentury poem, The Bruce, about King Robert, which I had studied 40 years ago at Edinburgh University. It was my introduction to this remarkable family:
Leawte to luff is gretumly
Through leate liffis men rychtwisly.
Or: “Loyalty is to love wholeheartedly, by loyalty men live righteously.”
theatrical dinner
That evening, a sumptuous dinner was held in the hall, library and dining room of Broomhall, surrounded by hospitality and the fabled marbles and hosted by Charles, Lord Bruce, Lord Elgin’s eldest son. “It’s all about theatre and I love it,” he said to me, before giving a speech to welcome the guests, who by now also included his 14-year-old son, Benedict, and the well-known Scottish writer and family friend Roddy Martine.
There have been one or two changes to the house, which now plays host to major corporate functions, hosted with great elan by Lord Bruce. Sadly, progress is not without its casualties. “The new gents used to be my bedroom,” Adam Bruce confided.
But the day belonged to Lord Elgin and the spirit of John Macnab. “Two years ago, he was back gunning me and shooting off a shooting stick and hitting everything,” Jane Kaplan told me at dinner.
Lord Elgin also never forgot the kindness and sporting character of his godfather, Sir Alexander Gibb. Each term at Eton, Lord Elgin would take the night train to London and go and see him, and be given two cigars, to be smoked at the end of each term.
My lasting memory of the Broomhall day was sitting with Lord Elgin in his enclosed buggy as he watched the shooting approvingly and fired up his cigar. He is now a two-a-day man.
While at Eton, Lord Elgin would see his godfather, Sir Alexander Gibb, who’d give him two cigars