The ultimate trophy asset for the new-money elite

Grouse shooting and grouse moors have historically been the preserve of the British aristocracy. For anyone interested in game, shooting grouse is about as good as it gets. If pheasant shooting is a yacht, grouse shooting is a luxury private liner reserved only for the very rich.

Owning a grouse moor is like owning a very expensive, extremely high-maintenance toy — and there are a group of buyers who are making grouse moors one of the most sought-after assets in the land. With only 300 moors in Britain, specialist agents say that there’s a queue of newly wealthy buyers but very few sellers, and consequently prices are heading skyward. The people buying moors are invariably self-made men who are not worried about reaping an income from this most prestigious of sporting trophy assets.

However, according to the Moorland Association, a grouse moor let out on a commercial basis can in fact yield quite significant revenues. Shooting runs from the Glorious 12th of August to 10 December, and the association says letting out 16 shooting days in the season could bring an income of just under £300,000.

Last year one of England’s premier grouse moors, Wemmergill near Barnard Castle, recorded its most successful season ever: more than 16,000 birds were shot. The moor is not owned by a grand landed family but by a former chicken farmer turned pub entrepreneur, Michael Cannon.

Cannon joined the list of the new-moneyed sporting elite when he paid over £5 million for the moor in 2006. He purchased it from the Earl of Strathmore, the late Queen Mother’s great-nephew, and has invested another £3 million in environmental improvement programmes at Wemmergill, planting more than 250,000 trees and increasing the wild bird population sixfold. The moor sustained 48 days of grouse shooting last season, and remains one of the finest of its kind in the world.