General Information
We are looking forward to welcoming you to the CLA Game Fair. In this section you will find all of the information you need to make your visit go smoothly. Please remember that the event is held on an open-field site and please dress according to the weather and conditions, for your comfort.
The CLA Game Fair began life with an informal conversation between two game-rearing specialists more than half a century ago. Nigel Gray and Charles Coles, whilst working at the ICI Game Research Station, put their heads together and came up with a new kind of social event to bring together the shooting and landowning interests of the British countryside.
Results
The first Game Fair was held in 1958 after CLA President John Ruggles-Brise (later Sir) approved CLA (then the Country Landowners’ Association) backing for the new concept. The first CLA Game Fair at Stetchworth, Newmarket, cost £800 to stage and had 8,500 visitors.Looking back at previous CLA Game Fairs offers a unique spotlight on the social history and development of field sports and the country way of life over the past half century. The shows have provided an opportunity for country people of varying interests and backgrounds to get together to chew the fat, exchange skills, wisdom and experience and to do business together.Today the CLA Game Fair has metamorphosised into an operation that those original founders would scarcely recognise. Yet the same fundamental driving forces still exist: the fellowship, the sense of community and the deep love of countryside activities that set a fire under the CLA Game Fair when it began in 1958.