SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN 



good stock on the ground the bag amounted to 

 1,151 pheasants, 563 partridges, and 115 hares. 

 One day in the season 1905-6 four guns killed 

 5 1 brace of partridges, driving. 



The late Mr. Frank Wheeler had some good 

 partridge shooting between the Harrows, Hugh- 

 enden, and Hampden in the early eighties ; a 

 party, of which I had the pleasure of being a 

 member, got fifty brace in one day. 



The late Mr. Cripps, chairman of Quarter 

 Sessions and the first chairman of the Bucks 

 County Council, also had some good shooting at 

 Parmoor. He was an excellent sportsman at the 

 time of which I write ; he kept a pack of 

 harriers, and on one occasion we started at 6.30 

 with them, killed a hare after a fair run, returned 

 to breakfast at 9.30, and an hour later Mr. Cripps, 

 his son Arthur and myself went out partridge 

 shooting, killing twelve brace. Mr. Cripps, who 

 was then seventy years of age, went home after 

 lunch and sought rest in reading a Greek play 

 with his eldest son Alfred, the present owner 

 of the property. This was a typical day at 

 Parmoor. 



Partridge driving was practised in the eastern 

 counties before it came into vogue in Buckingham- 

 shire. My first day's driving in the county was in 

 October, 1882, at Wycombe, when Lord Car- 

 rington, Mr. Harpley and myself killed 34 brace. 



There are certainly fewer partridges now than 

 there were twenty years ago. This is largely 

 due to the increase of grass, the planting of 

 woods, new railway lines, and the general de- 

 velopment of the country. 



Since Hall Barn passed into Lord Burnham's 

 possession in 1881, the pheasant shooting on the 

 estate has been brought to a remarkable pitch of 

 perfection. The merit of the shoots, in which 

 I have been privileged to take part every season 

 since the year mentioned, does not lie solely in 

 the magnitude of the bags made, but in the skil- 

 ful fashion whereby advantage is taken of the 

 undulating nature of the ground to send the 

 pheasants high over the guns. 



In November, 1892, H.R.H. the late Duke of 

 Cambridge, Lord Carrington, Lord Grenfell, Col. 

 Fitzgeorge, Col. R. Lane, Mr. A. Stuart Wort- 

 ley and the writer killed 1,077 h ea d in Dipple 

 Wood ; later in the same season H.R.H. the 

 Prince of Wales was one of a party who killed 

 1,266 pheasants in Burtley Wood. Every year 

 since then His Majesty, the Prince of Wales, and 

 other members of the Royal family have visited 

 Hall Barn. In 1 903 the Burtley Wood shoot was 

 postponed until 28 January to meet the King's 

 convenience ; the bag, 1,290 pheasants, was 

 surely a ' record ' for so late a date. The guns 

 on this occasion were His Majesty, the Prince of 

 Wales, Lord Herbert Vane Tempest, the Hon. 

 Henry Chaplin, the Hon. H. Stonor, Captafn 

 the Hon. Seymour Fortescue, Captain Godfrey 



Faussett and the writer. On an earlier day in 

 that month Prince Albert of Schleswig Holstein, 

 Lord Cheylesmore, Lord Burnham, the Hon. H. 

 Stonor, and the writer had bagged 900 pheasants 

 in Jennings' Hanging Woods. In 1905 His 

 Majesty's head keeper, being present as a spec- 

 tator at Lord Burnham's Burtley Wood shoot, 

 told me it was the best managed day he ever 

 saw. 



On the last day's shooting I had at Hall Barn 

 in January of this year the guns were His 

 Majesty, the Prince of Wales, Col. the Hon. H. 

 Legge, Earl Howe, the Hon. H. Stonor and my- 

 self, and 1,900 pheasants were killed. 



The partridge shooting on the Hall Barn 

 estate is fairly representative of that in the rest 

 of the county, only moderately good ; I have 

 never known a day's shooting produce over 

 60 brace. 



Good sport with pheasants is enjoyed on other 

 estates in South Buckinghamshire ; at Greenlands 

 (the Hon. F. W. D. Smith), Danesfield (Mr. Hud- 

 son), Seymour Court (Mr. Wethered), Little 

 Marlow (Mr. Bradish Ellames), Shardeloes (Mr. 

 Tyrwhitt Drake), and the tenant of recent years 

 (Mr. Beckwith Smith), Wilton Park (Mr. White 

 and Lord Grenfell), Hughenden(Mr. Disraeli, and 

 latterly Lord Cheylesmore), and Langley Park 

 (Sir Robert Harvey and Mr. Howard Vyse, who 

 rented it). Cliveden, which now belongs to 

 Mr. Waldorf Astor, is very small only 300 

 acres. In 1898, the last year of the duke's 

 ownership, Lord Desborough, Lord Grey, Mr. 

 Webster, Mr. G. Cross and the writer killed in 

 one day 300 pheasants, at that time the ' record ' 

 for the Cliveden estate. On Hampden, the Earl 

 of Buckinghamshire's estate near Great Missen- 

 den, Latimer, Penn, Hedsor, and Dropmore, 

 good sporting pheasant shooting is obtained. It 

 does not seem necessary to give particulars of the 

 bags made ; this is a matter which depends so 

 greatly upon the amount of hand-rearing the 

 respective proprietors care to undertake. Given 

 a pleasant day, sport on the Chilterns is always 

 enjoyable irrespective of the size of the bag. 



It cannot be said that this is a natural game 

 county, but in south Buckinghamshire the soil is 

 light, and birds do better than on the grass and 

 heavy clays which predominate north of Ayles- 

 bury. Hares have decreased greatly of later 

 years as a result of the Ground Game Act, and 

 rabbits have never been very numerous ; the 

 latter are not encouraged by reason of the great 

 mischief they do in the beechwoods. In the 

 light chalky soil of the hills the rabbits burrow 

 to a considerable depth, and the only way to 

 obtain sport is with the ferrets. I have never 

 seen more than 500 rabbits killed in a day's 

 shooting in the county, and it is quite possible to 

 shoot for a whole day in south Buckinghamshire 

 without seeing a rabbit. 



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