Hornby Shoot LANCASHIRE

When a shoot captain or gamekeeper tells me they have worked on the same shoot for decades, I dust off a joke about them being on first-name terms with every blade of grass around them. While such a feat is impossible, I have come to realise that there are shoot captains and gamekeepers with photographic memories and an encyclopedic knowledge of their ground. Ask them what year a particular wood was planted or felled, a new drive established or shoot lodge built and they’ll fire back an answer straight away, usually only requiring a second opinion about the specific date and time of day.

It was clear to me this would be the case with the people behind Hornby, a 1,600-acre estate owned by the Holt family, which teeters on the edge of the Forest of Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). The ‘people’ in question are the Hiltons: headkeeper Colin and his sons, Dean and David, whose family connection with the shoot started in 1908, when Colin’s grandfather, William Bowman, was first employed as a beatkeeper by owner Colonel William Henry Foster. William Bowman would serve the former Conservative MP and his shoot for an impressive 46 years in all, and was headkeeper by the time of his retirement in 1953 at the age of 76.

While Colin’s 60 years and counting with Hornby officially began in 1958 under the