A muzzle-loading day at Slebech Park
These ancient guns lent a historical element to the stunning Pembrokeshire setting, providing ample excitement if not big bags
The bags may not be big but these ancient guns offer much excitement, finds Editor Jonathan Young
Mhe moon shimmered on the Cleddau Ddu river as the car crunched over the gravel to Slebech Park, in south Pembrokeshire. A faint muttering of a shooting party, distinctive as the companionable lowing of wildebeest, came from the house but the deep attraction of a gin and tonic could not compete with the pull of the water shuffling against the bank. I picked my way down to the strand, a curlew’s keening cry mingling with the fat quack of a mallard to deliver a duet of tranquillity.
Centuries ago, this river would have echoed with other voices, the clatter of men preparing for war. Cleddau is derived from cleddyf (‘sword’ in Welsh) supposedly because it thrusts, dagger-like, into the Pembrokeshire lowlands. But it also encaptures the martial history of these lands.
The Vikings used it as a shelter for their longboats, with one, Hubba, wintering in the estuary with 23 ships and bestowing to cartography Hubberston Point and village.
Centuries later, in 1171, Henry II assembled 400 troop-filled warships for an attack on Waterford and Dublin. In the same century, Slebech Park housed the military monastical order of the Knights of St John.
Our expedition was also armed but with modern armaments. Modern, that is, for the mid-19th century. David Williams, a friend and head of arms and armour at Bonhams, had invited me on a muzzle-loaders’ day.
At one stage I had considered their use faddish, bordering on the eccentric. Not quite assistant librarians morris dancing but close. However, another friend has a worldclass collection of Joseph Manton flintlocks and had allowed me to handle them. Their snaky beauty and exquisite balance equalled – perhaps surpassed – that of most modern best guns and I had no reservations that they could kill as efficiently in the right hands, such as those of William Gascoigne, a noted ‘top shot’ and flintlock enthusiast.
Using a ‘flinter’, however, with its comparatively long lock time between trigger pulling and detonation, requires practice to deliver the charge accurately. I had used them occasionally (including one fabulously non-h&s event at a country fair on empty aerosol cans), but the odds against hitting flying game would be decidedly long.
“No need to worry,” said David Williams. “We’ll be using percussion-cap muzzle-loaders. You’ll hardly notice the difference, except they have their barrels aligned the proper way, not like your horrid over-and-under.”
Even so, it seemed sensible to book a practice session on the clays. Work soon mangled our diaries, leaving me to work out the niceties in the heat of a game drive.
standard dress
We woke to a perfect shooting day: force 3 breeze, sun and clouds. I’d met the rest of the team the evening before, a jolly crowd of experienced guns gathered together by David’s brother, Douglas. Any worries that there would be some sort of ‘reenactment’ dress – buckskin breeches, green tailcoats, stovepipe hats – was dispelled at the morning’s briefing. All were decently clad in tweed, though David Williams did sport an overtly tall titfer.
We were quite a crowd. The slow nature of reloading means that pheasants can pelt over while the gun is busy stuffing in a fresh charge. To avoid this, the line was divided into two teams of eight pairs, allowing one to reload while the other was engaged. After the safety talk, David Williams handed over my kit: a double-barrelled 12, made by Baker in 1853 (the year of The Fieldõs founding), shot and powder flasks, a handful of wads, ramrod and percussion caps.
“You put the hammer back to half cock,” said David. “Then pour in the powder, one dollop in each barrel. Then put in a wad and ram the lot down firmly. Then pour in the shot. Keep the gun vertical at all times, then put a percussion cap over the nipples. Once you’ve pulled the hammers all the way back you’re ready to go.”
Strung around with flasks, wielding ramrods and guns, the party trekked off to the first drive, the river now sparkling in full flood to our rear.
I’d chatted to Vernon George, the keeper, the night before about the intricacies of putting on a day for muzzle-loaders. “The secret’s to take it slow,” he said. “Every keeper likes to trickle the birds over the guns but on a muzzle-loader day it’s essential.” High above, his beaters were putting that into practice, inching their way through a maize overcrop.
David Williams was paired with me for this drive (partners change at every drive to make it a more sociable day) and stepped forward while I fuelled my Baker, taking care to cover each barrel in turn with my thumb, to prevent double dosing with gunpowder, and giving the shot-flask a good rattle to fill the dispenser with a full load of 1oz No 6s.
On the right, a pair of pheasants broke over number eight and fell to a double whoomph and cumuli of smoke. “That’s Mark Crudgington,” said David. “He’s always a tidy shot, no matter what’s he’s using.”
a sweet-sour smell
More booms from starboard, the sweetsour of gunpowder drifting past, and then a cock sailed over us. A strong January bird bent on reaching the safety of the riverbank below us. David swung the gun, hit him hard with the first, finished him with the second. A flatcoat left the line of pickers-up and collected it on the gallop. And now it was my turn. I pulled the hammers back to full cock, keeping the barrels at the high port, and 30 seconds later a hen followed the demised cock. Now I forgot all the loading procedure – it was just a gun like any other, albeit a well-balanced one. But it still needed to be held straight and I was off the line slightly, bringing the bird down but not connecting with the head. Nonetheless, the flatcoat made another successful retrieve and we changed places again, David despatching another hen.
Vernon George urged his team onwards to our left, edging the birds over the low numbers in the line before blowing the horn. We gathered up our ramrods and guns and moved down the hill.
“It’s an obvious thing to say, of course, David, but it doesn’t feel weird. It’s really just like using a normal gun,” I said.
Trickling the birds over the guns is essential on a muzzle-loaders’ day
“Of course it is,” he replied. “They knew how to make lovely sporting pieces in the mid-19th century.”
The second drive went better. I’d managed to grasp the Baker’s handling and killed three birds outright, tumbling them onto the saltmarsh below. In the exchange with my partner others drifted over unsaluted but neither of us cared. The pleasure in using these elegant old ladies eclipsed any desire to connect with every bird.
The pick-up completed, we moved to the fourth drive and number eight peg, where I was paired with David Baker, author of The Royal Gunroom at Sandringham and an authority on antique firearms. Sadly, there was no opportunity to see him perform as birds kept to the middle of the line.
junior broadside
The horn went, followed almost immediately by a junior broadside as everyone fired off their guns, for safety, before heading down to the reed-lined shore for Vernon’s favourite drive. “We’re going to spread the whole line individually along the river edge and push the birds over. Though it’s a haul, they’ll try and reach the other bank. Because some of us will be out of sight in the reedbeds, I’ll blow a whistle to start.” Squelching through the mere to our pegs, we lifted squalls of snipe, the white bodies underlit by the sun. Would they stay and offer a shot?
A sharp blast of an Acme and almost immediately I saw a wisp fly over David Williams. Happily, he missed with the second barrel, saving us all from a lifetime of recounting of his right-and-left.
A handful of snipe fell to the other guns but proved almost impossible to receive from the jungle of reeds. Not so my cock pheasant, however. Filled with the longspurred, seen-it-all confidence of a January cock he never spotted me in the rushes and somersaulted, dead, onto the mud.
It was time for lunch, eaten outdoors, with Douglas Williams producing pork pies and slabs of fruitcake as he explained that one of the delights of muzzle-loading was the cost. “We don’t need many birds to have a first-class experience,” he said. “And because the cost is split between 16 guns, not eight, we can have a 100-bird day for £250 each.”
Light being precious in January, there was just time to admire some of the other ordnance – including some princely Mantons – before heading for the fifth drive. “You might need a lot of percussion caps for this one,” said David Williams, pressing a half handful into my paw.
My partner this time was Mark Crudgington, owner of George Gibbs Ltd, rifle and gun makers, which he bought from his father Ian Crudgington (who had the famous gunshop in Bath).
Mark’s knowledge of guns is encyclopaedic and backed by his extensive private collection of the rare and unusual. He’s also a firstclass shot so it was little surprise when the first pair of birds over fell to an effortless right-andleft. Conscious of his presence, I fluffed the first barrel on my turn but killed it with the second. Mark, however, hardly missed, testament to both his skill and that of the 19th-century gunmakers who built his gun.
Mark can’t quite understand why more people don’t use English guns today. “Any gun is good so long as it shoots where you look, so I have no problem with modern, factory-made models. But secondhand English guns do offer fabulous value for money. If you buy a Webley 700 for about £1,200 then you’re paying £2 per hour of manufacturing time of highly skilled specialist gunmakers – and that’s an incredible bargain.”
He then shot another, another right-and-left, which I helped him find – plus a few percussion caps dropped in my haste – before teaming up with Douglas Williams for the last drive, reached by foot (we didn’t set foot inside a vehicle all day).
brothers in arms
Through fate or connivance, the Williams brothers ended up on adjacent pegs and, like all brothers, were determined to wipe the other’s eye. With the birds drifting right to left, Douglas only had that opportunity if David missed. And David was hell bent on avoiding that, only leaving his brother a chance when one of his hammers became unattached, leaving him rummaging through the bracken – a questing vole – while Douglas felled the birds.
The shadows now long, the air calling into frost, Vernon George blew the horn, signalling the end of the drive and the discharge of every unfired barrel. The last rays seeped through the fog of gun smoke, a smatter of laughter cut the silence and it was time for tea.
For further details of Slebech Park, call the Guest Services team on 01437 752000 or go to: www.slebech.co.uk
We don’t need many birds to have a first-class experience