In search of Britain’s great lost gundogs

It’s now almost 60 years since my father took me beating for the first time and, to me, one of the remarkable things is how little our working dogs have changed since then. The average English springer spaniel in today’s beating line is perhaps a little smaller, and retrievers, both labrador and golden, tend to be a bit more finely built. Fashions have moved on a bit and I’m sure I see more cockers, and perhaps a few more of the continental HPRs, but no breed has disappeared in that time.

A look at the old photos and accounts from six decades earlier again — and even back to the birth of Shooting Times in 1882 — shows much more change, but the sport of shooting was different back then and very much in a state of evolution.