Help Identifying Marks

[browningautorifle]

I'm wondering if it was used by a soldier and never returned back during or after war. Just a guess I could be way off.

Most were just surplus and if you can imagine how many that was, someone hid it there because mother didn't like guns... The story isn't as romantic as we'd like.

Yes she is full wood I ordered parts from all over

So you put the wood back to full?

[Alan de Enfield]

Most were just surplus and if you can imagine how many that was, someone hid it there because mother didn't like guns... The story isn't as romantic as we'd like.

A find in a (English) Church tower :

WWI rifle found during work at St James Church belltower in Bushey | Watford Observer

It look like one of those 'specials' modified for the WW1 tunnelers, rather than a Lookout's rifle.
More likely to be a rifle illegally held (no licence) and was hidden there - It'd be interesting to see the headstamps / dates on the ammunition.

[browningautorifle]

Didn't we have a thread about that one here some time back? Or it came to light during a discussion about tunneling rifles...

[mac2017]

Yes I agree. I doubt it was hidden, I'd say it was just covered to keep dirt and dust off them as there were 3 guns covered under same tarp.

[Surpmil]

From old photos here in Canada it seems to have been mostly Winchesters and Savage 99s which were the preferred hunting rifles before WWI, with a sprinkling of other US makes and some Rosses. After the war the surplus Lee Enfields poured in. Were they popular because of price or because hundreds of thousands of men had become familiar with them during the war? Good question. Hard to say which group would be larger: those who who had learned to know and trust the rifle, if not "love" it and those who didn't care to be reminded of all that it represented. The Lee was seen somewhat as "yesterday's rifle" before the war restored its reputation, and not just in Canada either.

Tangential ramblings!