One hundred and fifty years ago, wild meat was harvested, without the use of guns, to feed the burgeoning cities. In the 1890s, skylarks from fields and woodcock in woodland rides were netted and brought to Leadenhall Market in London. Soon breechblock shotguns took harvesting meat to a new level, meaning there were no more low-hung nets, and the fieldsport presented the challenge of killing cleanly and efficiently with the spread of shot, propelled safely from cartridges discharged at a prodigious rate. An abundance of lead, the material used for the shot, which earlier had attracted the Romans to geologically diverse Britain, saw us become its primary extractor in the 19th century.
For many hundreds of years the benefits of lead - malleability, high density, low cost and its use…
