26 SEPTEMBER 2019 WWW.SHOOTINGGAZETTE.CO.UK
A
nyone who knows
anything about
the history of
game shooting will
know Lincolnshire
was the home of the late Sir Joe
Nickerson. It was he, and his team
of fellow Guns, known as The Big
Six, who shot a record-breaking
number of English partridge back in
the 1950s.
On the day of our visit to
Worlaby, I was joining one of the
descendants of The Big Six, Tim
Lamyman - grandson of Leonard- on his estate, one renowned for
its partridge shooting, not just in
Lincolnshire but much farther
afi eld. The 2,200-acre estate in the
Lincolnshire Wolds is a beautiful
spot that is not only famous for
shooting but also farming. Tim is
something of a celebrity farmer who
holds world record yields for oilseed
rape, dried peas and, until recently,
wheat as well, which he is striving
very hard to regain.
Tim no longer runs the shoot
day-to-day owing to farming
commitments and after 29 years
handed the shooting rights over to
Craig Dennis, who was in his fi rst
full season here. Craig, who has
been a gamekeeper all his working
life and hails from the county,
started a game farm before taking
on a shoot in Sussex, Iford Downs
in the South Downs. He wanted
to buy land and a house but found
Sussex too expensive so returned
to his roots in Lincolnshire, where
he now also runs a small shoot in
Horncastle, near where he lives.
“I wanted a shoot in the Wolds
and was rung out of the blue by
Tim who, due to a change in
staffi ng at the shoot, had decided
the time was right to change the
management at Worlaby. We met
and found we had the same ethos
with regards to running a shoot,
so I knew it was going to work.”
Craig says Tim “puts shooting fi rst
and farming second”. I can see