Pigeon Pie!...

Tonbridge Blog wrote about the pigeons around the castle and how people encouraged them by feeding them tasty tit bits of bread and bird seed (scroll down the Pecking Pigeons.) There were some rather cruel comments about what to do with them and the words Winged rats, vermin, filthy feathered things were mentioned more than once. Here is a recipe from Eliza Acton, the famous Tonbridge poet and cookery writer which may help with a useful perhaps even environmentally friendly solution!

Pigeon Pie (As published in Modern Cookery for Private Families by Eliza Acton, 1845. Reprint copies available from Mr. Books by the way!)
Lay a border of fine puff paste round a large dish, and cover the bottom with a veal cutlet or tender rump steak, free from fat and bone, and seasoned with salt, cayenne, and nutmeg or pounded mace; prepare with great nicety as many freshly-killed young pigeons as the dish will contain in one layer; put into each a slice or ball of butter, seasoned with a little cayenne and mace, lay them into a dish with breasts downwards, and between and over them put the yolks of half a dozen or more of hard-boiled eggs; stick plenty of butter on them, season the whole well with salt and spice, pour in some cold water or veal broth for the gravy, roll out the cover three-quarters of an inch thick,secure it well round the edge, ornament it highly, and bake a pie for an hour or more in a well-heated oven. It is a great improvement to fill the birds with small mushroom-buttons, prepared as for partridges; their livers also may be put into them.

Food from a different age perhaps but the quality of her writing and that eloquent Jane Austenesque use of language make me want to go right down to the castle in search of some fresh pigeons. Someone get the stove on....