English Traditions

Pheasants are shot on the traditional formal "driven shoot" principles, whereby guest or paying guns have birds driven over them by beaters, and on smaller "rough shoots" by other methods.

The Driven shoot

The popularity of pheasant shooting dates back to the Regency period which alignes with the invention of the percussion cap gun. Being a much more efficient weapon than the old flintlock gun, this enabled bigger bags of game to be shot. Landowners started planting woods and coverts on their property, not only to create aesthetically pleasing landscapes but for pheasant shooting and with fox hunting purposes in mind.

By the 1820s, the continental practice of ‘battue’ or driven game shooting had begun to take place on a few well known English estates, including Knowsley in Lancashire. Throughout the late Victorian and Edwardian periods, driven pheasant shooting had become an important fixture on the social calendar on most large estates.

Today, it is a well instated if not controversial english tradition with many landowners running commercial shoots or organising events for social occasions.