Written by Percy Trollope in 1978:
On the edge of the village of Horningsham was a thatched cottage, one of the only two left of the hamlet of Little Horningsham, which at one time could boast a Manor House, a Chapel, a Farmstead, a Poor House, and a number of cottages. This cottage was in the 19th century occupied by one of the Longleat Estate game keepers. His job was to see that in an area allotted to him, consisting of several woods and of farmland – called his ‘Beat,’ game birds, and at one time, ground game, were preserved. The farm tenancies agreements included clauses that game was to be preserved for the landlord’s sport.
It was about 1908 that I became interested in the life of this keeper living in the thatched cottage with his wife and two sons aged seven and six. These two boys were my playmates during weekends and evenings in spring and summer. I spent much time with them, helping them with chores allotted them by their father who was extremely strict and stern with them and they feared him. He would chastise them with a dog whip if they offended, and demanded that they thanked him for the whipping. To their father they had always to be obedient. Their mother was just the opposite, being most kind and she did her best to protect the boys. It is against such a background that I write of a keeper’s year.
When the shooting season ended on February 1st, the keeper started to prepare for the next shooting which would begin on September 1st for partridges or on October 1st for pheasants. The first job was to overhaul all the hatching equipment used for the previous season – the hen coops, sitting boxes, shelters, etc. The hatching eggs for the new season came from the pheasant hen birds who had escaped being shot the previous seasons. Each year the eleven keepers on the Longleat Estate, including Mussell, Lewer, Barter, the Garretts, Parker, Scott, and the headkeeper Stockley, would raise several hundred young birds on each of the eleven beats.
The breeding season began in April. Each keeper had to find the necessary number of eggs from the nests of the surviving wild birds; they laid their eggs in nests made on the ground in rough vegetation, or in the woods, or on the banks of hedgerows. On the ground the hen merely made a ‘scrape,’ which was sometimes difficult to locate. The keeper needed the help of his sons and many local friends to hunt the gorse-covered ground, the woods and the hedgerows, to find the nesting sites. When found, the keeper would visit them every few days replacing eggs taken with dummy eggs to encourage the hen to lay her full clutch in that particular nest – often as many as 14. The eggs would be carefully handled and placed in special boxes made for the purpose. They then had to be hatched by ordinary hens. Each keeper kept a flock of poultry and used his broodies; sometimes it was necessary to hire them from cottagers and farmers at one shilling a broody, which would be returned in good condition. They were sometimes bought outright for two shillings or two shillings and sixpence.
The Little Horningsham keeper had a hatching shed attached to his cottage, where the sitting boxes were housed. As far as possible eggs of the same age would be set at the same time, so that a large number of chicks could be taken to the Rearing Field at once.
I remember seeing the sitting hens being taken off their nests each morning to be fed and watered. Each hen would be tethered to a stout hazel rod by means of a string slip. They were fed on maize, the most suitable food, providing heat for the hen’s body and being slow to digest. After the feeding it was necessary to observe that each hen had “manured” so that the nest would not be fouled. The manure was collected by the boys, to be used on the garden.
In the early spring the Head Keeper who lived at Aucombe, near Heaven’s Gate, would negotiate with farmers who had suitable Rearing Fields; there was no difficulty as compensation would be paid by the Estate agent. The Rearing Fields having been decided, the hen coops would be taken there and deposited at about 10 to 12 yards apart. The keeper had the responsibility to find and hire a lad who had left school, to be his ‘Bird Boy.’ He would start his employment in the early spring and assist in finding the pheasant eggs and make himself generally useful to the keeper. His wage would be six shillings per week. It was necessary to provide in each Rearing Field a hut for the bird-minder. This was a rough construction of six feet by six feet by six feet, with sacks nailed to the sides and sheets of galvanised iron for the roof.
The incubation of the pheasant eggs was arranged so that there were a large number hatched about the same time. After about 24 hours in the nest each brood would be taken to the Rearing Field and placed in a coop, a water bowl was provided for the mother hen and chicks, and a large bough of a bush would be placed near the coop as a protection against predators.
The food for the chicks was prepared at the Keeper’s cottage and would consist of sifted barley meal, biscuit meal, chopped boiled rabbit, chopped boiled eggs, and a little spice (a vitamin additive that encouraged growth and which was normally bought from Gilbertsons). Feeding was usually done by the keeper three times a day. The Bird Boy’s job was to see that nothing interfered with the chicks’ welfare. It was essential that feeding times were regular. If the Bird Boy had no watch, the keeper would erect a sundial in the Rearing Field, and, if necessary, correct it every morning if the sun was shining. At the Keeper’s house there was a building called the “Maggot House,” where flies could deposit their eggs in the suspended carcase of a cow or a horse, to produce fat maggots; the carcase was shaken and the maggots collected in a tray, shovelled into a pan of boiling water and so sterilized. They were distributed to the keepers to be included in the young pheasant chick’s feed.
The time came when the young birds were inclined to roost outside their coops. Every evening they had to be coaxed into their coops, to be penned up for the night, allowing the Bird Boy to go home. When this became too difficult it was time to remove the coops and the birds to the edge of the wood where they could roost on the lower branches of trees or on bushes. A lantern burning away all through the night was hung nearby to scare away foxes. The young birds would explore their new surroundings and had an inclination to wander away from the wood; it was necessary for someone to drive them back and prevent them from straying into a rival keeper’s beat or on to a neighbouring estate. To encourage them to stay in their wood, an ample supply of grain would be spread in the rides.
The keeper now had more time for his continuous war on vermin. To the keeper all foxes, stoats, weasels, hedgehogs, and rats, were vermin. Bird predators were crows, magpies, jays and members of the hawk family. Trapping of ground vermin went on throughout the year, mostly with tunnel traps. A small tunnel was built over a likely run, e.g. from hedgerow to a wood. There would be a number of tunnels with traps, set in suitable places on the keeper’s beat, and he would inspect them whenever he passed that way. The farm workers on his beat, of course, knew where these traps were and sometimes a rabbit in a trap would make a nice meal. The keeper knew this happened and tolerated it, provided the trap was reset.
In April and the beginning of May, the Longleat keepers would organise “Magpie” shoots. The Head Keeper would ask local farmers to take part. Really the shoot was a cover-up to shoot foxes who were the most dangerous predators of game birds. They often raided sitting hen pheasant nests, consuming the eggs and taking the pheasant as a meal for their cubs. The foxes that were shot were never added to the Keeper’s ‘Gallows.’ This was usually a low branch of a tree to which were tied the vermin victims by the head until they rotted away. The string loops were left hanging as evidence of the keeper’s activity. Some keepers would shoot owls in their over-enthusiasm to protect game birds – they failed to recognise that owls preyed on vermin. The Gallows were sited where the Head Keeper, on shooting days, would pass by.
The skins of the foxes were often sold to add to the keeper’s wages. He had to be careful not to reveal the number of foxes destroyed, especially if his master was a hunting man. He was expected to have a show of foxes available when the local Hunt came that way and he would be reprimanded if there were several blank days. But, of course, the preservation of game and the preservation of foxes at the same time was practically impossible.
One of the ways guests and friends of the Marquis of Bath were entertained when visiting Longleat, was to be invited to take part in a game shoot. Much thought and preparation were needed to arrange a day’s shoot. Each keeper was responsible to provide enough birds on his own ‘Beat.’
They were stationed at Aucombe, Park Hill, Crabtree, Norridge, Black Dog, Gunville, St. Algars, High Wood, Swancombe, Foxholes, Little Horningsham, and at Keisly [Keysley], Kingston Deverill. Pheasant shooting began on 1st October but on the Longleat Estate shoots were deferred until December. Around the Christmas season large shoots took place when more than 1,000 birds would be shot in a day.
The Head Keeper was responsible for placing the individual guns. Marking sticks with numbers would be placed at points outside the wood with a good view of the flying birds. They were allotted by the Head Keeper who would have had instructions from ‘The House’ to place the most important guests at the best points. The keeper of the ‘Beat,’ where the shoot took place was in control of the beaters and he would walk in the middle of the line of beaters as they went through the wood to make sure they were in a straight line so that the guns would know where they were. Most of the beaters came from the Woods department of the Estate. The Head Forester, having been given information, would select the men and tell them where and when to meet. The shoot usually started at 10.00 a.m. The other keepers would bring their black or golden retrievers to retrieve the shot birds which would be taken to the ‘Game Cart’ which was specially made to carry game.
The Game Cart was a four-wheeled vehicle, green in colour, with a tilted roof. Dead game would be hung on hooks on both sides and there were more on the roof rafters. It was horse-drawn, and made by a local carriage-maker. It was usually in the charge of an Estate farm employee who would be responsible to keep it clean inside and out. The man I knew who ‘went with the Game Cart,’ when I was a boy, was Jacob Garrett, brother to the Garretts already mentioned.
The morning shoot would be followed by lunch. A site would have been chosen where the morning shoot usually ended. The gun guests were provided with a sit-down lunch at tables and ‘trestles.’ Hot food and soup was brought at the correct time, and footmen from Longleat House waited on the guests and made sure everything was correctly done. Some of the guests provided their own loaders; for others a keeper would load. If there was a surplus of soup it was given to the loaders, who would be grouped a little distance away from the beaters who were having their bread and cheese, washed down with ale drawn from a small barrel.
Luncheon over, the beaters would walk and line up for the next drive, giving the guns time to get to their marked shooting points. The afternoon shoot usually finished about 4.00 p.m., when everybody assembled. The gun guests would have their horse or motor conveyances waiting for them to take them back to their place of residence. The beaters would disperse to their cottages which could be a walk of several miles. The keepers would probably ride back in the Game Cart.
On some beats a large number of rabbits would be shot, especially near the chalk downs. If it had been a successful day, the beaters would be given a couple of rabbits each and on some occasions a quart of beer which would be obtained from a public house on their way home; the landlord would send the bill to the Estate Office.
Towards the end of the shooting season only the cock pheasants would be shot and as the birds rose the beaters shouted either “A cock over” or “A hen over”; the guns would only shoot the cock birds. The day after a shoot the keepers would go over the ground to pick up any wounded birds or dead birds not retrieved.
On the Longleat Estate it was customary at the close of the shooting season for the keepers and beaters to be invited to a supper, usually held at the Bath Arms, Horningsham. There would be some guests including the ‘Mastermen’ on the estate, and the host of the Bath Arms would provide a hot meal laid out in the “Long Room.” Usually the Marquis of Bath would preside and after the ‘cloth’ was removed, His Lordship would say “Gentlemen, you may smoke,” and clay pipes called “Church Wardens” and tobacco would be distributed. Speeches would be made, commenting on the past shooting season; toasts would be proposed, to His Lordship and his family, carried with great acclamation. There would be the rendering of songs by certain members of the Head Keeper’s staff, and some of the beaters would be called upon to sing their well-known favourite songs such as “Jack Tar.” This would be the climax of the shooting season.
A word on wages. The Head Keeper at that time received about £2. 10 shillings per week, and his house. No doubt he received tips from the gun guests which might have amounted to several pounds in a season. Each of the other keepers received 16 shillings per week and their cottages, wood fuel would be available to them, rabbits at all times could be had, as well as an injured game bird. Some keepers no doubt received monies for fox pelts, rabbits and their skins, mole skins from the moles they trapped, and the advantage of having grain available for their hens.
The Bird Boys received six shillings per week and were employed for about three months, but if they proved their worth they might be taken on to the Estate staff.
The Head Forester received £2. 10 shillings per week, his foreman £1 per week. The woodmen’s wages were two shillings two pence per day, equalling thirteen shillings a week (hours 7.00 a.m. to 5.30 p.m., winter hours daylight to dusk). Those who did Sunday chores received 14 shillings a week.
The Farm Bailiff in 1914 received £2. 5 shillings per week. Farm men received 15 shillings per week.
The men who were called upon to do beating were supplied with an overcoat, light in colour, so that they could be clearly seen, and it was made of stout material suitable for rough walking through briars, etc., and sewn on were large buttons carrying the Thynne coat of arms. The beaters were also given thigh leggings against the wet undergrowth.
The keepers wore breeches and leggings, and a coat made of very stout material, light in colour, having two large inside pockets, in which they would put game birds or rabbits. There was also a waistcoat made of similar material.
They had no fixed hours of work, being more or less their own masters but were always under the supervision of the Head Keeper. They never seemed to have a holiday but they enjoyed their work; here was a certain professionalism about game keeping, and they were held in high esteem in their own community.