A Golden Shoot In Country Down

David Sandford’s vision to reintroduce wild partridges has won the Purdey Award – and helped to create a delightful shoot

- Sir Johnny Scott

When asked to write a report on a day with the Port loughan Shoot, County Down, in early November last year, I was unaware the Purdey Awards judging panel had already decided to present owner David Sandford with the prestigious Gold Award at the annual ceremony later in the month. The judges came to their decision in recognition of Sandford’s exceptional vision and leadership in successfully reestablishing a sustainable population of wild grey partridges, classified as extinct in Northern Ireland since 1992, on his 225-acre farm and for persuading 21 neighbouring farmers to support him across a further 1,800 acres.

This remarkable achievement is part of an ongoing conservation programme that began 20 years ago, as I was to discover when Sandford drove me round on the afternoon before the shoot. In 1996, when he moved back to the family farm on the shore of Strangford Lough with his wife, Alison, son, Mark, and daughter, Lucy, the land comprised 100 acres of grass with 125 acres of woodland, scrub, gorse and rough grazing. Keen to utilise this to start an informal family shoot and act as the catalyst for improving the land and woodland for the benefit of wider biodiversity, he sought advice from the GWCT and a programme of shrub and tree planting was instigated. Two new ponds were dug and two old ones resuscitated, and, in 2002, the farm entered a Countryside Management Scheme, which allowed the planting of wild bird cover, rough grass margins and, as the crop-able acreage had been put down to arable, over wintered stubbles.