Leighton Hall (Lancs)

“The Historic seat of the Gillow family…Come and enjoy our beautiful gardens. Relax and stroll around all corners of this amazing outdoor space, from the extensive lawns to the 19th century Walled Garden, with ornamental vegetable patch, path maze and bee corner leading to the woodland walk with adventure playground.” Leighton Hall does everything from hen parties and  ‘exclusive’ weddings, to location filming and a series of events. The estate forms 10% of the Arnside & Silverdale Area of the Outstanding Natural Beauty [sic] and is near the boundary of the RSPB’s major wetland reserve at Leighton Moss. Leighton Hall “takes pride in its Environmental & Sustainability projects that we quietly get on with.” What else might they quietly get on with? That would be shooting pheasants – technically not ‘without noise’, of course, but ‘barely mentioning it’ anywhere on their extensive website, except in one line under ‘About the Estate‘ where they write “Commercial activities such as property rental, clay pigeon shooting, paintballing, pheasant shooting and a 4X4 driving track helps to diversify and produce income.” Shooting birds dead has become so normalised for estates like this that it can be added to a line about diversifying and producing income with barely a backwards glance. However the shooting operation on the estate is undoubtedly huge, and Protect the Wild, working with an undercover team, uncovered genuinely appalling conditions and dead and dying young pheasants in rearing pens on the estate in September 2022 (see a short video here).