THE ULTIMATE FIELD DAY

The

of shooting socks, then you’ve stumbled on a revered rural tradition. Game fairs are more than just a place for traders to hawk their country sports products – they are a countryside meeting place with roots going back to 1958.

This was the year that the daddy of all country fairs, the CLA Game Fair, made its first

If, in the course of your wanderings around a country estate or the grounds of a stately home, you come across a large collection of what appear to be glorified tents arranged into aisles, while green-clad punters march up and down the grassy corridors inspecting an assortment of leather cartridge bags and pairs ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT outing. Previously, the only chance keepers, land managers and estate owners had to get together was at events such as Crufts, where the Game Research Station (now the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust) took a stand, having noticed the number of gamekeepers who flocked to the gundog events. At the same time, training courses for keepers were becoming hugely popular – the demand for a standalone event was apparent.

The first CLA Game Fair took place on 2527 July 1958 at Stetchworth near Cambridge. In a situation that will be familiar to game fair attendees today, the weeks before the fair were plagued by almost continuous rain, leading to fears of a dismal show. As it happened, it was a raging success, the visitor figures of 8,000 nearly tripling expectations.

The key was the fair’s universal appeal. It wasn’t just a keepers’ event or a landowners’ get together – it was an invitation for everyone on the countryside spectrum, rich or poor, to get together to discuss ideas and promote fieldsports. Unlike county shows, point-topoints or more generic country shows, this game fair had a distinct focus on shooting and its associated sports. There was a rifle range in attendance; falconry displays took place in the arena; a clay shoot was organised; there was a Gamekeepers’ Club put on by the Gamekeepers’ Association. The game fair as we know it was born.

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