The Shooting Party:  Shooting meets Nikki Beach- Genius!

Cost:  From £5,000 + VAT

Many of you will feel that shooting is an excuse to have a day out with friends.   The shooting party stretches the concept by taking a slightly shortened version of our Full Monty days and then turning our lunch into a full-fledged pool party!  

Shooters can be joined by partners at lunch and we can cater for 40 easily and 50 at a stretch.    Let me leave the photos to tell the story:

The shoot: 

This is based on our Full Monty Simulated game day, being the ‘Rolls Royce of our shoots; albeit we normally drop our Woodcock competition to allow for the extended lunch from around 2.00pm.   Effectively we are ‘shooting through’

The Party:  

Lunch is always an indulgent and decadent affair; but the party lunch, we want to take to a new dimension.  We will either host this in our stretch tent or our new dedicated pool house.  If the weather is kind we take Hilldrop eccentricity to a new level and have lunch on the Pool Roof Terrace.  We challenge you to find a better view than this!

If you then combine music, the pool, Rose, Champagne, Ramsbury Ale, Cider, butterfly of lamb, a delicious lunch, a few disco balls in trees and some imagination and then… you have yourself a party?    You are welcome to use the pool as well. 

The Costs:

 The basic cost of the day is £5,000 plus VAT but does not include cartridges, instructors, hired guns or Gnats or let’s call it drinking the house dry!   Extra guests for lunch are charged at £40 per head 

The Shoot, Drives and Format:

Meet and Greet at the Shoot room: We ask guests to arrive at 9.00am at the shoot room, which is a dedicated ‘hunting lodge’. Hot Coffee and Bacon rolls will be served on arrival to help lift your spirits from your journey. After setting the seen and a safety briefing we will set off to the shoot.

Partridge – The Somme: The Opener is predominantly an English partridge drive. The pegs are positioned within a stunning gulley with coveys of partridge and the odd higher pheasant coming over a hedge. We have recently built a network of First World War trenches and bunkers to add a new dimension of this drive.

High Pheasant – ‘Kite Hill’:  Due to its steep valleys, Hilldrop has a reputation as a superb game shoot.   Kite Hill has humbled some fine game shots and thus is a perfect backdrop for our high pheasant drive where you will be tested with 100-120 feet birds.  In addition you will see some low ‘horizon hugging, crossing French partridge’, distinctive from their superior English cousins, as the Frenchmen typically fly away from the guns.

Elevenses and Laporte Archery:  Our picnic spot has spectacular views ranging for 15 miles. Pimm’s, soft drinks and homemade flapjacks are served.   For those that really want to take the shooting experience to the extreme, we will give you a chance of shooting at huge flying foam clay.  Sounds easy enough – right up to the point that you discover your weapons are a bow and arrow.

Wildfowl and Vermin:   Following the Pimm’s break, we will take you to the wildfowl and vermin drive, which many refer to as our signature drive. This drive should really test your game-keeping instincts! Designed to get the adrenalin pumping, one can expect to shoot flighted duck, springing teal, English partridge, crossing pigeons, magpie, coot and crows, plus the rare and rampant ‘Hilldrop Rabbit’! 

The Grouse – ‘Ptarmigan’:  Grouse is often seen as the ultimate game bird and shooting them is a completely different discipline. Grouse are lightning quick and literally hug the contours of the land.  The really good shots here take them way  out in front, and simultaneously can thoroughly frustrate their neighbours by shooting their birds just as they are taking aim.  Thus we have built our own grouse butts in our own to compact grouse moor.  Many leave thinking this is the most exciting and memorable of all our drives.

Instructors: (Optional at £100 per day)

Beginners will need an instructor and novices will almost certainly get more from the day with enthusiastic guidance from one of our team. Each of our instructors can supervise two guests but if you want to use this as a dedicated training session, we can invite Sarah White, who shoots for Great Britain, to join you for the day.

Gun Hire: (Optional at £50 per day)

If you want to save your barrels or have guests without guns, we have a selection of 12 and 20 bore estate guns available for guests. Prior notice is required.