The original idea of forming a wildfowling club in Colchester came from Graham Mckillop who, along with Russell Peck and Ken Crawshaw, placed an advert in the Essex County Standard newspaper, asking all like-minded people to attend a meeting at Graham’s grandparents’ house in Victor Rd, Colchester.
I do not know how many attended the gathering but the club was formed that very evening, with Ken Crawshaw as Chairman, Graham Mckillop as Secretary and Frank Fenning as Treasurer.
The first ‘clubroom’ was an upstairs, quite large room at the Blue Boar pub in Newtown, Kendall Rd. Those first meetings were in 1963 and the object mainly was to obtain the club’s own salt marsh to shoot. The Essex Naturalist Trust had only been formed two years earlier, Ken and Graham were both members; Ken their Chairman and Graham, either on the committee or a very active member.
The Trust had obtained land on Rat Island in the Colne estuary to warden the Black Headed Gull and Little Tern colonies; the C.W.C.C. had its first legal marsh to shoot. That was also in 1963. We warden and shoot Rat Island to this present day.
The C.W.C.C. still only had a small piece of marsh but they had a vast acreage for Pigeon shooting; all of Strutt and Parkers land at Lavenham and Monks Eleigh. Lots of farms around the Colchester area were offering quite a new thing, Pest Control and it all worked very well.
The first Clay Pigeon ground was obtained from George Porter, forming a small area to shoot clays close to the railway line near Marks Tey. Tony Thompson and Fuzzy Porter, one of the sons, were both very keen and good shots. They formed the Clay Pigeon section in 1965-66. The Clay section was so successful in getting shooting contacts that the club went from strength to strength in getting new members which offered new shooting prospects, but after five years existence, they still only had Rat Island to shoot wildfowl. |
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It seemed that nothing would turn up where we could realise more wildfowling; but in 1969-70 two things happened that changed all that. Sir Leonard Crossland bought Abbotts Hall farm at Great Wigborough, which had extensive salt marsh and Ken Salmon moved into the Keeper’s Cottage at Old Hall as gamekeeper to Brigadier Colvin, which also had acres of saltings. Things moved very quickly over the summer months and both saltings were in place to shoot the following winter. In the meantime, Ray Island was bought by the National Trust and to be managed by the Essex Naturalist Trust. Once again the C.W.C.C. were in the frame to get the wildfowling on the salt marsh, which was eventually achieved. Sir Leonard Crossland became Patron of the C.W.C.C. and for years supported the club.
Further areas of saltings were obtained by the club; Moor Farm, Peldon Hall, Feldy, Samsons 1 and 2, Pewitt Island, and Langenhoe Point.
The Club had always wanted to buy its own piece of marsh and then, in 2002 the saltings of Barrow Hill farm came onto the market and this salting eventually came into our possession. With the British Association for Shooting and Conservation and the Wildlife Habitat Trust giving us their full support, we purchased our first piece of marsh.
Buying Barrow Hall marsh opened up access to Bower Hall marsh, which we rent, so from shooting on a small salt marsh island, our club now has access to many hundreds of acres of land. So from that first meeting in ‘Mac’s grandparents front room all those years ago the C.W.C.C. is still a thriving wildfowling club, looking forward to the next forty eight years; and with the support we have always had from the members, we can achieve that aim. |
