Gamekeeper At Longleat.

A Memory of Longleat.

Hi Geoff, yes I was on the Longleat Estate in the 1960s, only for three years, I was gamekeeper, on the Corsley side of the Estate. Mr Minter owned the shooting rights over the Estate, with Mr Bill Buckett retained by Lord Bath to manage the deer herd in the park, and the lakes around Longleat House,. I started work at Longleat a few months before the lions arrived. After working for Mr Minter for one year, he decided to let off the Corsley side of the Estate, together with Lower Woods and Rodenbury, to a shooting syndicate, called The Corsley Syndicate. I was taken on as their gamekeeper, our young family lived in Sturford Lane, but after two years of hard work, I realized the large wooded areas of Longleat were more than I could sensibly manage, so I then took a gamekeeper's job on a smaller estate at Codford in the Wylye valley. But I have many happy memories of Longleat.