This is shooting in its purest form. It goes back into the history of shooting and is likely to be its future, with smaller bag, wild bird days Floors Castle Scottish Borders
Of all the jewelled mansions in the Scottish Borders, none stands more visible than Floors Castle, sitting above majestic Tweed and cradling the pretty market town of Kelso. It has, for more than 300 years, been the family home of the Innes-Kers, clan chiefs and Dukes of Roxburghe, and is Scotland’s largest privately inhabited castle. Sir Walter Scott, whose home was nearby at Abbotsford, declared it “a kingdom for Oberon and Titania to dwell in”.
Today’s Oberon is Charles Innes-Kers, 11th Duke of Roxburghe, and Titania his wife Annabel Green, whom he married at Floors Castle in September 2021. As befits a former officer in the Blues and Royals who served in Iraq, Roxburghe, 40, commands leadership and respect and is passionate about stewarding the 52,000-acre Border estate for future generations of the family. This includes agriculture (there are 48 tenanted farms), forestry, residential and commercial property, a wind farm and sporting lets from fishing to shooting, both grouse and pheasant, but always with an eye to the wider local community. The tearooms and splendid walled gardens are open all year round, and fishing on the Lower Floors beat can be taken by the day.
No shoot day at Floors is more prized than the only annually let 50-brace day of wild grey partridges, a conservation project begun by Roxburghe’s late father, Guy, in 2012. “I am continuing a project
