The Countess Bathurst

The indomitable chatelaine of Cirencester Park in Gloucestershire talks about pensions for police dogs and her deep love of shooting and the countryside

- MELANIE CABLE-ALEXANDER

IT IS NOT every day you take a bite from a police dog. But this is exactly what I am doing thanks to the persuasive skills of the Countess Bathurst, the chatelaine of Cirencester Park, Gloucestershire. She's described by the Duchess of Rutland in her popular podcast Duchess as "a tornado of a woman". I am learning why.

Incongruously we are in the middle of one of the Park's prestigious polo pitches, famous for hosting sporting royals from the Duke of Windsor to HM The King. But it also doubles up as a police-dog training ground and "has done for generations".

We meet at the Countess' home on the edge of the Park to talk about her new project, the National Federation for Retired Service Animals (NFRSA), as well as her love of fieldsports, namely shooting. However, I've been bundled into the Countess' Porsche and whizzed across the Park, past a marquee set up for the VWH hunt ball, to participate in a police-dog training exercise. "Oh well done," I hear. "Not many people would be brave enough to take that on," says the Countess - or Lady B as she is affectionately known after a snarling German Shepherd hurtles towards me and grabs the bite shield on my arm.

The NFRSA, which was officially inaugurated in April at Christie's, was her lockdown project in 2020. While many of us were in a pyjamafied state of somnambulance, she decided to "put all her soldiers [or police officers] in a row" and create a charity inspired by her stint as High Sheriff of Gloucestershire in 2016.