Shadwell Estate (Norfolk)

Better known for its Stud, now owned by Sheikha Hissa, a member of the horse-racing obsessed Emerati royals, Shadwell also breeds, buys and arranges pheasant and partridge shoots every year (and, we’re told, also shoots deer, allegedly to protect breedstock & racehorses from disease though we can’t confirm that). Coincidentally just a short walk from the HQ of the British Trust for Ornithology, a well-known shooting website states that “Shadwell estate is set in an idyllic corner of the Norfolk Breckland countryside just outside Thetford. With 30 drives spread across more than 6,000 acres, the estate offers excellent partridge and pheasant shooting…Mid-afternoon you return to the shoot lodge for a well earned 3 course lunch.” Well earned? With an expected ‘bag’ of at least twenty birds each, our sympathies go out to all those weary trigger fingers…