Tricky Cocks At Willey's

Difficult conditions make for testing birds to be added to the Foresters’ gamebook, kept meticulously since 1825

- Rory Knight Bruce

Of all the English landscapes, none have changed so little in the past 200 years as the rural and sporting vales of South Shropshire. Drive from Craven Arms along the 17 miles of meandering Corvedale to Much Wenlock and, along the way, the settled estates of Burwarton, Delbury, Shipton, Morville and Acton Round are much as they were when Iron bridge nearby became the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution.

Parallel to this fertile vale is Wenlock Edge itself, a dramatic escarpment that rises a thousand feet above sea level. At its Much Wenlock end, with long tracts of woodland on the horizon the only indication of its existence, sits the Willey Park estate, another fine example of absolute solidness and seclusion.

The seat of successive Lord Foresters since 1740, the imposing Wyatt mansion built in 1815 is approached by a mile-long drive though parkland that could have been created by the hand of Repton or Capability Brown. Willey Park has a claim to have the oldest continuous game-book in the country, beginning in 1825. “I suppose that is because they kept the game-books going through the two Great Wars,” said the current, ninth Lord Forester as we met for coffee in the front hall, surrounded by trophy heads of ibex and kudu from Africa.

“My grandfather walked from Cape Town to Cairo and shot the best of what he saw,” explained George Forester of his grand father’s 6,000-mile journey in the 1920s, and shooting remains in the blood. Since 2008 there have been up to 20 150- to 250 bird days of mixed pheasants and partridges, where guns can enjoy all the virtues of an old-fashioned, family-run shoot.