Gloucester Clay Shooting Club

The club has been located in Norton, almost opposite the Kings Head on the Tewkesbury Road, since its inception in 1948 and thus its history is also a part of the village’s.

The club was formed in early 1948 to provide sport with the gun during the close season.  The club had a successful first summer at Norton. 

Photo shows Mr M R Hope (left) and Mr W Parry, Honorary Secretary, competing in the last shoot of the season at Norton on 15 September 1948.

The Gloucester Citizen newspaper of 27 April 1950 reported on the arrival of the club at Norton; “Flying ‘Saucers’.  I am told that Gloucester and district is shortly to have its introduction to a new sport – skeet.  Mr Roberts Redston who is the hon. Secretary of the Gloucester Clay Pigeon Shooting Club tells me that they hope to make a start at the club’s grounds at Norton in the near future.  The full equipment is not yet in position but it will not be long before that is in complete working order. Skeet is a form of clay pigeon shooting which was introduced in America some years ago, and which is now popular in all parts of the world.  It consists of shooting at clays travelling from two different directions and the shooter is placed in different positions so that he gets a wide variety of angles and elevations.  A lot of people have confused the clay pigeon target with the decoy pigeons one sometimes sees in gunsmith’s windows.  Others may have read of shooting at live pigeons whose wings have been clipped but these of course are very far from being used in clay pigeon shooting. The actual ‘pigeon’ is a bakelite disc shaped like a saucer – in fact it is an authentic ‘flying saucer’”.

The Gloucester and District team held their first open shooting match at Norton in July 1950 against a team from Swindon and won a closely contested match by just the two points.

Members of the Gloucester and District team of the Gloucester Clay Pigeon Shooting Club after their match against Swindon.

The clubhouse was originally a small shed and had just a single skeet layout with high tower built on top of an old WW2 pill box. The site was originally rented but was purchased by the club in the early 1970's. 

The new clubhouse and the two skeet layouts you see today were built in 1974.  

The sound banking was erected in the late 1970's to provide a sound barrier between the club and the village and it's inhabitants, for which they were very appreciative.

[2002]

The premises are located on the site of a Second World War bunker that was associated with a searchlight and ack-ack battery.  This will be recorded elsewhere on this site at a later date.