Sporting Lodges: Sanctuaries, Havens and Retreats

The sporting lodge has adapted over the years to form the focal point of many estates.  In this fascinating and beautifully illustrated book, the authors write not only about the lodges themselves but also about fishing huts and modern luncheon lodges. One of the earliest fishing huts is the delightful Charles Cotton’s Fishing House built in 1674 by Izaak Walton’s friend.  The informative, lively text describes life in the lodge both then and now with glorious first-hand accounts as well as incidental snippets explaining general shooting lodge fare and dining rituals of times past. Gun-rooms and rod-rooms, game books, fishing registers and hunting diaries are all covered.  Every major lodge had a range of outbuildings nearby. Those built in coastal locations might include mooring facilities built originally to allow the owner and his guests to arrive by private steam yacht.  Sporting Lodges also records some extreme eccentricities, such as the lodge on a remote Scottish island where the conservatory contained heated turtle pools — turtle soup being considered an excellent ‘restorative’ after a long day’s shooting!  With its tales from the past and anecdotes from the present, the authors have written a book which creates a superb portrait of this wonderfully British sporting institution.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Introduction: 'Where we meet' How the lodge came about Location, location, location Journeying to the lodge Life in the lodge Cooking and cuisine Boots, guns and rods Outbuildings and adjuncts Customs, traditions and curiosities Luncheon lodges Bibliography, Further reading, References and sources Index

About the Author :
Jeremy Hobson has been a professional freelance writer and author since 2004 but began writing long before that. He is a Member of the British Guild of Agricultural Journalists, with countless magazine articles and over 30 published book titles to his name. Jeremy’s subject matter is generally rural-based, on field sports; farming; smallholdings; chicken-keeping and working dogs. David S. D. Jones has been an archivist and historian for the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation for over a decade. He is descended from a long line of outdoor servants employed on country estates throughout England and Wales and numbers amongst his ancestors and relatives gamekeepers; hunt servants; gardeners; grooms; woodmen; farm workers; land agents and more. He owns the Gamekeeping Photographic Archive and the David S. D. Jones Photographic Collection.

Review :
Includes many fascinating first-hand accounts of life in the lodge then and now, and there are detailed rituals, rod rooms, game books and fishing registers. There is also a splendid section on lodges built in rather eccentric places some so remote they can be accessed only by sea! If you're looking for something to relax with after a hard day's stalk, you won't do much better than Sporting Lodges. For those interested in the history of their sport, it provides an in-depth look at the history of the sporting lodges, complete with detailed and evocative pictures of some of the most interesting that our Nations estates great and small have to offer. From the baronial extravagance of the Victorian highland lodge, to the modest thatched hut by the river, this is a fascinating history of sporting lodges. But it is much more; it is a social history of fieldsports looking at the way lodges transformed sport and were themselves affected by railways, roads and the huge social changes of the last century...An absorbing history and a great read. A charming and envy-inducing history of sporting lodges in the British Isles. The subtitle says it all really; shooting lodges, bothies or fisherman's huts are sanctuaries where log fires roar, whiskey tumblers refresh and sportsmen and women forget about the concerns of the wider world. The book contains some fascinating insights into the way sporting estates were run just a few generations ago, and also covers, among other topics, travel in the golden age of steam engines and motoring and cooking. With section headlines like Private railway stations and Ghosts of those who have gone before, there are many little treasures and the authors have done a tremendous amount of research to deliver an endearing book which will entertain and tantalise in equal measures. This is an extensive and fascinating history of the quintessential British sporting lodge. Beautifully illustrated throughout, it covers the classic and most interesting and unusual shooting, stalking, fishing and hunting lodges, bothies, huts, boxes, castles and barns. With its tales from the past and anecdotes from the present, the authors - both prolific sporting writers - have written a book which creatures a superb portrait of this wonderfully British sporting institution. A fascinating read. The sub-title on the front cover just about sums up this book as it is "Sanctuaries, Havens and Retreats". Whatever one's sport from fishing and shooting to stalking, sooner or later people come across fishing lodges, stalking bothies or simplest shelters. Only the privileged few have access to many of these...The large number of excellent photographs, some very old, depict a life most of us can only imagine.