As Who Owns England has previously exposed, grouse moor estates cover an area of England the size of Greater London – some 550,000 acres – and are propped up by millions of pounds in public farm subsidies.
Now, for the first time, we’ve mapped the owners of around 100 grouse moor estates across England.
Even the Spectator calls owning a grouse moor “screamingly elitist” – and surprise, surprise, around half of England’s grouse moor estates turn out to be owned by the aristocracy and gentry, whilst the other half are owned by wealthy businessmen and women, City bankers, hedge fund managers, and Saudi princes.
Here’s the ten largest grouse moors by area, with their owners, and the farm subsidies their estates received from the taxpayer in 2016:
| Grouse Moor Estate | Acreage | Farm subsidies (2016) | Owner |
| Raby Estate | 30,000 | £683,579 | Lord Barnard |
| Gunnerside Estate | 26,020 | £100,632 | Robert Warren Miller, businessman. Estate registered offshore |
| East Allenheads & Muggleswick | 26,000 | £145,288 | Jeremy Herrmann, hedge fund manager |
| Abbeystead Estate | 23,000 | £57,228 | Duke of Westminster |
| Wemmergill Estate | 15,676 | £272,664 | Michael Cannon, businessman |
| Lilburn Estate | 14,678 | £1,550,699 | Duncan Davidson, founder of Persimmon Homes |
| Bolton Abbey Estate | 13,500 | £139,708 | Duke of Devonshire |
| Bollihope Estate | 12,600 | None registered | Sheikh of Dubai |
| Linhope Estate | 12,000 | Not known | Duke of Northumberland |
| Strathmore English Estates | 11,169 | £279,609 | Earl of Strathmore |
| Totals | 184,643 acres | £3,229,407 |
You can read more about other grouse moor owners and the investigation methodology later in this blog post.
THE DESTRUCTIVE IMPACT OF GROUSE MOORS:
The fact that a tiny elite owns England’s grouse moor estates matters, because of the disproportionately large environmental impact of managing grouse moors. Grouse moor gamekeepers are responsible for the illegal persecution of hen harriers (we should have 300 pairs in the English uplands – it fell to 4 pairs in 2017), and for wiping out huge numbers of foxes, stoats and other natural predators of grouse.
Moreover, the slash-and-burn practices used to maintain grouse moors – burning heather, often on rare blanket bog – have been shown to dry out and degrade peat soils. This releases soil carbon, adding to global warming, and reducing the resilience of our uplands to the impacts of climate change: desiccated bogs mean worse wildfires when it’s hot (like Saddleworth Moor) and more flooding when it rains (like the flash floods that washed off Walshaw Moor in winter 2015, deluging Hebden Bridge). It also makes grouse moors look like the surface of the moon, as I found on a visit to one in the Peak District..."
Read more from source here.
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