Region guide

Country and Shooting Hotels in the West Midlands

The West Midlands and the Welsh Marches are quietly among the finest pheasant country in the kingdom. The wooded hills and steep valleys of Herefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire — and the small estates around the Black Mountains and the Long Mynd — throw the kind of high birds that draw guns from across the country. Staffordshire and Warwickshire add well-keepered driven days within an easy drive of the Midlands and the south. The keepering tradition is strong here, the season runs long, and the country itself — orchards, hop-yards, the Wye and the Severn snaking through it all — is among the most beautiful in England.

A West Midlands hotel for a shooting party should be within reach of the borders shoots, comfortable with dogs and wet kit, and serving the kind of dinner that closes a long day properly. Local cider, when it appears, is more than a courtesy.