Bereleigh Estate/Hampshire Countryside Day (Hants)

Home to the Tyrwhitt-Drake family, Bereleigh apparently “lies gracefully in beautiful, undulating Hampshire countryside within the South Downs National Park.” Which means of course that it is “the perfect location for country sports, farming, entertaining and events.” Country sports is a euphemism for shooting and hunting, and Bereleigh is perhaps best known for a long-running legal case brought by one of the estate’s neighbours who complained about disturbance from the huge and regular shoot held there: much to the satisfaction of the Countryside Alliance the judge in the case ruled against the plaintiff, the CA thanking the Tyrhwitt-Drakes saying “Everyone who shoots is in their debt.” After all, what good is all that countryside inside a National Park if you can’t make some noise shooting birds in it? Bereleigh also hosts ‘Hampshire Countryside Day – Celebrating the best of the countryside in Hampshire’, whose logo is pretty much what you’d expect of an event promoting hunting and shooting and is held by people who really do seem to believe that killing things is what the countryside is for. On the hunt front, invited packs for the September 2024 ‘Day’ included the Hampshire Hunt, the Hursley Hambledon, the Sandhurst & Aldershot Beagles, and the Palmer, Marlborough & Clinkard Meon Beagles. The ‘Coursing Crew’ ran a Lurcher and Terrier Show with the criterion that “Exhibitors must be members of a working terrier club. Terrier breed club or be a hunt terrier man, gamekeeper or pest controller at the time of entry.” The whole sorry affair is being promoted by Visit Hampshire, but those of us who see what’s left of the countryside as a place for wildlife to live will want to give this one a miss…