20 JANUARY 2007, Page 16

Plaque birds

From Hugh Massingberd Sir: In, alas, the last of his delightful 'Food for thought' columns (13 January), Simon Courtauld mentions that Goya painted a heap of dead woodcock. For the home side, it might be added that the sculptor Sir Francis Chantrey (originally a grocer's boy in Sheffield) carved an exquisite plaque in the Marble Hall at Holkham depicting the brace of woodcock which he himself dispatched with a single shot while staying with the great agriculturalist 'Coke of Norfolk' in 1829.

Hugh Massingberd London W2