A new chapter for a historic syndicate

As Ragley estate's Dunnington Sporting Club opens its doors - and its shooting opportunities - to non-members for the first time, a roving syndicate takes advantage of the exclusive sport on offer

- Adrian Dangar

THE GRAND surroundings of 17th-century Ragley Hall, which is the ancestral seat of the Marquesses of Hertford, will be familiar to many Field readers as the setting for no less than half a dozen Game Fairs in recent years.

However, there is much more to the 5,500-acre estate than the Capability Brown-designed parkland that this year once again hosted the country's premier fieldsports event. According to estate director Charles Granlund, concerts, corporate activities, festivals, film shoots and weddings are all part of the mix for this model rural estate, which has all but 250 acres of its farmland in hand. In 2024 the current Lord Hertford's focus on environmental stewardship and local community resulted in the award of a prestigious RASE Bledisloe Gold Medal for outstanding achievement in land management and development of an English agricultural estate.

This is not the first time a Hertford has been at the cutting edge of rural innovation. The third Marquess, who also owned Sudbourne Hall in Suffolk, teamed up with Lord Rendlesham in the 1770s to introduce red-legged partridge as an additional quarry species on their neighbouring East Anglian estates via eggs imported from France. It is thanks to their foresight that the French partridge has become the ubiquitous quarry species that it is today, although some claim the breed's success might have been at the expense of our own native grey partridge. This philanthropic streak resurfaced in 1900 when the widow of the fourth Marquess's illegitimate son, Sir Richard Wallace, bequeathed his eponymous collection of priceless armour, paintings, furniture and porcelain to the nation, which has been on public display at Hertford House in London ever since.

Taking the reins