Made for bustards
Georgian Bath is a long way removed from a three-room cottage near Warminster in Wiltshire with only oil lamps and candles for light, as was the case when visited one spring evening in 1954. The old man who lived there had an ancient gun he wanted to sell, and word of mouth had led a young collector to his door.
The gun was enormous, a 5ft 7in (1.7 metre) barrel with highly engraved brass furniture, the whole thing weighing in at 14lb. The old man told the collector it was a ‘bustard’ gun used on Salisbury Plain to shoot the world’s heaviest ‘gamebird’. This tale had been passed down to
