The Great Revival of the English Partridge

The last ten years have seen several successful projects to restore the wild English partridge, and this has raised the possibility of sustainable shooting.

In 1958, when I was eight, I lived in the officers’ quarters where my father was stationed at the Central Ammunition Depot, (CAD) at Bramley, in Hampshire, where he also ran the shoot.

We were conveniently sandwiched between the Duke of Wellington’s Estate at Stratfield Saye and The Vyne, now a National Trust property, and of course we benefitted from the numbers of birds they put down.

However, they only put down pheasants, because there were still plenty of wild English partridges to shoot, although these declined dramatically in subsequent years, mainly as a result of pesticides, and reduced habitat caused by modern farming methods

With the benefit of hindsight, it now seems extraordinary that we could have allowed an indigenous species to decline in numbers to the point where it was in danger of becoming extinct.

Fortunately, the Earl of Leicester, was a pioneering conservationist, and at Holkam Hall in Norfolk, had where they have run wild pheasant and partridge shoots for 300 years, and in the early 1990s he began the process of restoring the population of wild English partridges, and in 1994 was awarded the Laurent Perrier (now the Purdey) award for conservation.

Having shot from an early age, in recent years I have become increasingly enamoured with the concept of ‘sustainable shooting’, encouraged in particular by the various wild partridge projects which have taken place in different parts of the country.

I therefore decided to write this article for the many keen shots who share my enthusiasm for the concept of ‘sustainable shooting’, using the success of these partridge projects as the example of what can be achieved with the intelligent management of habitat and constant vermin control, which is what these partridge projects are all about.

Above: A conservation area at Ratcheugh

The Golden Era

The Golden Era for shooting wild English Partridge was from 1870-1930 during which period around two million grey partridges were killed annually. 

On October 18th to 21st 1887, at The Grange Estate, Hampshire, seven guns shot 4,109.  A decade later, at Houghton, Norfolk, the guns bagged 4,316 in four days.

Lord Carnarvon hosted a record three-day bag at Highclere in November 1895, taking a staggering 10,807 head of game with five other Victorian heavy hitters, including the Duleep Singh brothers.

Other, more recent achievements include the late Joe Nickerson’s team at Sandringham who shot 2119 partridge in a day in 1952, which was just before the dramatic reduction in numbers of wild English Partridge in the late 1950s and 1960s.

Above: Grey partridge in flight at Ratcheugh

Ducal Greys

Two of the most prominent instigators of these partridge projects are The Dukes of Norfolk and Northumberland, and the latter very kindly arranged for me to meet his Head Keeper, Garry Whitfield, to discuss his Partridge project at Ratcheugh.  In fact, it was Gary Whitfield’s initiative idea in the first place, and the Duke has supported him wholeheartedly in his endeavours.

When I met with Garry Whitfield, we sat on a stone bench on a high ridge in Hulne Park, admiring the Duke’s favourite view over the Northumberland Estates, and he told me that it was the Duke’s ambition to be able to shoot 50 brace of wild partridge on his 50th birthday, and following the success of their Partridge project, his wish came true at a shoot to celebrate this milestone.

Above: Robert with Garry Whitfield, the Head Keeper at Ratcheugh

It was the ultimate birthday present for a man who loves his sport so much, and a tribute to the way he backed his Head Keeper, and the result was them receiving The Purdey Award in 2008.

Following the success of the Northumberland project, The Duke of Norfolk enjoyed similar success, and in only six years, the wild English partridge population on the Norfolk Estate at Arundel in West Sussex, grew from three breeding pairs to 262 pairs.  

In 2002, Dick Potts, one of the world’s leading authorities on grey partridge and farmland ecology, visited the Duke of Norfolk at the estate office in Arundel. “Dick told me that if we didn’t act now, the grey partridge would soon become extinct on the South Downs,” recalls the Duke. “I thought: as a shooting man, and as the owner of part of this area, if I can’t do something, then nobody can.”

Given the nature of the South Downs, I can think of several large estates which, if they chose to emulate the success of the Duke of Norfolk could easily create a ‘corridor’ of partridge friendly land from Winchester in the west to Eastbourne in the east, and it would not take too many landowners to achieve this objective.

Above: Grey partridge in flight at Ratcheugh

Sustainable Shooting

These two experiments on the estates of the Dukes of Norfolk and Northumberland have, I believe, signalled a welcome development in the shooting world where, instead of shooting huge numbers of birds bred solely for the purpose, they might shoot half the number, but derive far greater pleasure knowing that this is a sustainable shoot which brings with it, so many other benefits.

Perhaps the City Slickers who regularly take days with bags of upward of 300 birds, might prefer to have the kudos of inviting their guests to shoot wild birds on a sustainable shoot.

They would, I am sure be amazed at the concept that ‘less can be more’, but as this is not a banker’s traditional philosophy, they might take some weaning off the ‘instant gratification’ shooting which they have become accustomed to.

Taking a day on a sustainable shoot might become the ‘in thing’, and the privilege of shooting English ‘greys’  in a  sustainable way certainly has great appeal, so I hope this signals a paradigm shift in attitudes towards game shooting.

Robert Jarman, Founder and Editor of The Vintage Magazine

The Vintage Magazine would like to extend their thanks to the following:

His Grace, The Duke of Northumberland

Garry Whitfield, Head Keeper of the Northumberland Estates

Andrew Farquarson – Comptroller of the Household at Alnwick

Graham Edmunds, Photographer