The Royal Armouries museum in Leeds has a number of recreated hunting scenes.
This scene shows Walter Linnet, professional wildfowler hunting birds on the marshes of the Blackwater Estuary in Essex in the 1920s. He and many like him earned their living selling their birds to shopkeepers before the days of farming duck and geese.
The punt is Linnet’s own, and was acquired from the collection of James Wentworth-Day, the eminent Essex naturalist, writer and sportsman.
Like his father and grandfather before him Linnet lived in a wooden shack on the edge of the marshes of Bradwell-on-Sea, just next to the Saxon church built by St Cedd in the ruins of the late Roman shore fort at Othona. Wildfowlers like Linnet led solitary lives, paddling through the marshes at night with their punts, almost always cold and wet, in search of flocks of nesting birds to shoot.
Thank you all for your comments and fav, they are very much appreciated.
I assume that the wildfowler lies in the boat like this to make himself less visible to the wildfowl, but it must have been uncomfortable, and needed enormous strength to paddle the punt.
Thank you Naomi - I tend to acquire information as I explore, or I research what I've seen when I get home. Most of the notes on this shot were from an information board beside the display.
Thank you all for your comments and fav, they are very much appreciated.
I assume that the wildfowler lies in the boat like this to make himself less visible to the wildfowl, but it must have been uncomfortable, and needed enormous strength to paddle the punt.
Ian
Thank you Naomi - I tend to acquire information as I explore, or I research what I've seen when I get home. Most of the notes on this shot were from an information board beside the display.
Ian
Thank you Will - this museum gave some fascinating insights into the uses of arms.
Ian