Birdsall House and Estate (N.Yorks)

“Birdsall House and Estate nestle in one of the most picturesque and secluded of Yorkshire’s landscapes…Whether you are interested in holding a beautiful wedding, taking a fabulous tour of Birdsall House, competing in our epic off road Yorkshire Mountain Bike Marathon, renting a property, shooting a film in an outstanding location or breeding cows, Birdsall has a lot to offer.” Quite a comprehensive list (breeding cows and all!) – but it fails to include “blocking badger setts and hunting foxes”…perhaps illegality is so rampant in North Yorkshire it’s such a given that it hardly seems worth mentioning (this is consistently the worst county in England for raptor persecution because of its numerous shoots, of course). Fortunately York Anti-Hunt League mentioned it. In a HIT Report they (along with “independent monitors, York Hunt Sabs, West Yorkshire Hunt Saboteurs and East Yorkshire Coast Hunt Sabs“) found the Middleton Hunt at Birdasll in March 2025, the hunt’s closing meet of the season. The sabs stated that “blocked badger setts were discovered by York Hunt Sabs and independent monitors. There was also a smell of diesel at some of the setts -typically used to deter badgers and foxes from using them. This is particularly worrying at a time of the year when badgers have cubs…We believe Birdsall Estate is fully aware of what happens on its estate…” Birdsall might dispute that but there is no denying the estate’s shoot, details of which are listed under “What We Offer”, including “Bags of between 150 and 250 birds”. Pampered shooters are promised a chance to “catch up on the events of the day over tea and cake in front of a roaring fire”: in other words, recount heroic exploits of slaughtering hundreds of birds for fun while stuffing themselves with fruit cake…