Golden Ticket Winners At The High Four Day

Four challenging drives, each at a different Gloucestershire estate, tested the lucky guns who won the GWCT raffle

- Duff Hart-Davis

From one end of the line came a merry shout: “It’s no use standing behind Ed, he never misses.” There was some truth in the remark, for Edward Iliffe was downing bird after bird with lethal precision as high pheasants and partridges streamed over the double line of guns; but nobody grudged him his good fortune, for it was he who had won this cracking Gloucestershire High Four Day and brought a team of seven friends to share it.

In this, the fifth year of the High Four shoots, the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) had again organised a raffle in which the prize was a day spread across four great Cotswold estates. In all, 250 tickets had been sold at £200 apiece, with everything depending on the generosity of individual landowners, each of whom contributed one major drive without charge.

So it was that the Iliffe team assembled at Church Farm, near the village of Yanworth, on the 6,000-acre Stowell Park Estate on a beautiful, cold, November morning. Lord Vestey, the owner and donor, could not be present but after coffee in the barn, with a fire blazing, the riot act was read by head keeper Eddie Graves, a massive figure made more impressive by the fact that he is the holder of an MBE for services to game keeping and that this was his 25th season at Stowell.

OFF TO 40 ACRE

With minimum fuss the team moved off in a convoy of 4x4s to deploy in a valley deep beneath a stand of maize, known as 40 Acre. Frost crunched on the grass as the guns moved into position and the beeches on the hill behind were glowing with the most glorious reds and browns and golds that anyone could remember.