ARCHERS from Hampshire, East Sussex, Dorset and Surrey competed at the Forest of Bere Bowmen’s 14th annual longbow shoot held at their field in Horndean.

The weather during the week had been very changeable but it stayed dry for most of the shoot.

The round shot was a western, which consists of four dozen arrows at 60 yards and four dozen at 50 yards, all shot six at a time and with lots of walking in between.

As is usual with a longbow shoot, before the hard work, came a glass of sherry.

The first placed gentleman was Barry du Crow of Southampton Archery Club.

His score of 692 is 30 higher than the UK record of 662 for a western round, the latter being set in 2001.

In second place was Andy Solars of Waterside Archers and in third place was Alan Smith of Newhaven Archery Club.

For the ladies, Julie Pilbeam of Farnham Archers came first, Michelle Loxley of Osprey Archers based in Weymouth finished in second place, and Shauna Innell of Waterside Archers based in the New Forest finished in third place.

Gill Merrett of Forest of Bere Bowmen won the prize for the best gold.

This is given to the archer who, at the time of the judge’s choosing, has an arrow which is the nearest to the central part of the gold.

There were also colour prizes of bottles of beer, given to the first person to hit a marked part of each colour on the target face.

The labels matched the colours hit.