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News
24/04/2008 Bay Horse Field
Weather permitting, we should start shooting outside now Summer has arrived!
Bay Horse Field
We have the Field for another 3 years, just have to sort out mowing the grass now.
Derwynd Field Shoot
you’ve missed it, but here are some snaps so you can see what you missed. Five of us went.
   
There were quite a selection of bow styles being shot, longbow, Hungarian horse bow, recurves with and without sights, American flat bows, compounds with and without sights, one piece recurves and straight forward Hunter TD’s. Arrow casualties were minimal, but badgers, bunnies, owls, turkeys and foxes all suffered. Weather was good and it was fun, recommended.
Archer Shoots Giant Elk in Poulton le Fylde
and it wasn’t Norbert, the event predates Norbert coming to our shores by about 11,600 years (Mesolithic period), don’t know what Duncan was doing at this time, bowling hadn’t been invented by this period, so he would have had more time on his hands, so who knows…..?
Anyway back to the Giant Elk (like a North American Moose), he was called Horace by the way. He was discovered in 1970 in High Furlong, Poulton le Fylde. The dig was organized by John Hallam, archaeologist and eccentric old duffer, who also had the dubious claim to fame in that whilst serving with the R.A.F. in Ireland during W.W.II was shot by the British Army. It was something to do with smuggling cows over the border, he told me the cows were nothing to do with him, but why he was in a field at 3 in the morning with a herd of contraband cows is something he didn’t explain. Sorry wandered off track a bit there, back to Horace. Poulton at this time was a marshy bog with birch and pine trees, where Horace was found would have been a lake.
What makes Horace unusual is that he probably died as a result of human hunters, using bows, arrows, spears and axes made from bone and flint. The old chap was between 3 and 6 years old and was killed just prior to his antlers shedding which would probably have been in winter. He was in the prime of his life and in the cold winter months a valuable food source for the local hunter-gatherers (Maglemosean culture) that lived in the Fylde at this time. However, such a large animal would have been hard to kill with the available weapons. The evidence shown on the bones would indicate that he was attacked on two occasions, approximately a week before his death and within a day of his death, there were 17 lesions found on the skeleton. On both occasions he was able to escape but died soon afterwards, and the hunters went hungry.
Horace now resides in the Harris Museum, Preston, where he can be seen. I can’t remember whether or not the arrows/harpoons used during the attack are on display, but if you ask they would doubtless dig them out if you were interested.
Oh, and one more thing, Horace is the earliest evidence of human activity in the North West, eventually they will get to Pilling.
 "Horace" the Moose (front bit)
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