Combe Estate (Devon)

“Leave Something Better than we Found” says the website of Combe Estate, which sits within the East Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (now renamed the East Devon National Landscape). The estate’s website says “The woodlands are managed in accordance with a management plan which looks at short, medium and long term objectives for the woodlands and combines the need for profitable rotations of the commercial woodland with the conservation, amenity and sporting objectives of the woodland enterprise as a whole.” ‘Sporting objectives’ in Devon typically mean either hunting or shooting. A supporter who contacted us about Combe Estate noted that it was a “pheasant shoot with snares and traps all over the place.” On GunsOnPegs the Combe estate is self-described as “a true Westcountry Shooting Estate” where “the majority of the drives are out of semi ancient natural woodland supplemented by some game cover. The guns may find themselves stood on purpose built boardwalks, within the woods or out on open pasture but always positioned to be underneath the best birds the drives have to offer.” Which perhaps brings us back to that claim of leaving the estate better than they found it…