Town & Country

And that’s how it’s done AN arable-and-livestock farm in the Cotswolds, with pioneering owners who combine a commercial French partridge shoot with ‘phenomenal’ habitat creation and predator control to conserve wild grey partridge, corn buntings and skylarks, has scooped gold at the annual Purdey Awards, now in its 25th year. Seven finalists gathered at the gunmaker’s famous Long Room in London’s Mayfair last week, where Sam Phillips and gamekeeper James Bendall were recognised for the 3,600-acre Macaroni Farm family shoot’s commitment to Gloucestershire wildlife. Lauded for ‘melding conservation, farming for profit and a passion for shooting in a thoughtful way’, the judging panel—led by the Duke of Wellington—called the enterprise ‘a poster-child for farming’. ‘We’re chuffed to bits,’ enthuses Mr Phillips, who runs the organic farming enterprise alongside the shoot, which his father,…