This guy owns more land than any person can reasonably use and is wealthy beyond the wildest dreams of any of us:
*”Dartmoor was the only place in England and Wales where there is a right to camp under the stars without seeking permission from the landowner.”*
“*Alexander Darwall, a hedge fund manager and Dartmoor’s sixth largest landowner, brought the case against the national park, arguing that the right to wild camp on the moors never existed. Darwall, the owner of the 1,619-hectare (4,000-acre) Blachford estate on southern Dartmoor, offers pheasant shoots, deerstalking and holiday rentals on his land.*”
Wanker.
This is a terrible decision we should do the equivalent of the historic mass trespass on kinder scout and go and do a mass wild camp on Dartmoor.
Absolutely disgusting stuff, so that’s another one of our rights chucked on the ever growing bonfire to benefit the wealthy people who really run our society. Why don’t they just make it illegal for us plebs to go outside if we’re not working and get it over with?
“The plebians shall only be allowed outside to travel to and from the bismuth mines.”
This is the trajectory. The ruling class want the countryside for ‘nature’ (and themselves), and the plebs confined to ’15-minute cities’. The reverse of the Inclosure Acts.
People have been warning about this for a long time. It’s happening.
Looking at this with horror from Scotland and feeling incredibly thankful for the right to roam. Genuinely think Scotland is one of the freest countries in the world for it. So shite that some cunt landowner can just come along and stop people from exploring and enjoying the country.
Really hope people in England can fight back against this and win their rights.
Absolute bollocks.
The entire case hinged in whether camping is “recreation”.
Of course it bloody is.
What’s ridiculous is that while camping isn’t strictly permitted in England and Wales, it isn’t a criminal offence either. It’s a civil matter, unless you make it aggravated trespass by refusing to leave. So people will wild camp anyway – there’s now just a good chance you’ll have to deal with this tosser pheasant-hunting arsehole if you happen to pick one of his fields.
Will happily contribute to any crowd funding for the national park to appeal this.
To say camping isn’t recreation is absurd.
And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon Englands mountains green,
But don’t wild camp on Albion’s moors.
Well I will happily donate to a crowdfunding campaign to help overturn this nonsense and have wild camping explicitly allowed on the moor.
What a sad little man wanting to take recreation from the people.
They’re coming for us.
Not just camping.
Landowners have started employing security guards with aggressive dogs to move on people wild swimming. Not to mention it’s a hobby enjoyed mostly by women so you’ve got male security guards watching women get changed in front of them then shooing them away.
Can’t camp, can’t swim, heck outside of Scotland you don’t have a right to walk through most fields either.
The ruling class of wealthy landowners don’t want us enjoying the countryside because it gets in the way of their pheasant shooting and deer stalking (the guy who brought this Dartmoor case runs pheasant shoots and deer stalks, I’m not just sliding that in as a dig).
Also know that the Conservative government were last year proposing to make trespass a criminal offence, so if you wandered off a public footpath, you could land up with a criminal record.
We have to resist this, else our rights will just get further and further eroded. Chip in for the appeal crowdfunder. Mass trespass. Lobby your MPs. Once these rights to leisure are gone they’ll be bloody difficult to get back.
We should repeat the old right to roam protests and all collectively camp on this bloke’s lane on the same night.
And there it is wasn’t really expecting anything else to come of this, but there we go another step in the wrong direction fuck these wealthy land owners.
Please go out and wild camp while obviously adhering to leave no trace.
Petition popular UK based YouTubers who camp to join this cause, it will bring in much needed support.
This is terrible.
Coming from the US, I really missed wild camping and Dartmoor was one of the only respites I had short of travelling to Scotland. Some sort of Right to Roam as found in Scotland or the Scandinavian nations wouldn’t go amiss!
Fuck this nonsense
We need a major rethink of our rights in this country.
92% of the countryside and 97% of rivers are off limits to the public. How can that be right?
The cunt also donates tens of thousands to UKIP and Vote Leave. These people are not on your side.
Whilst it’s a shame, this won’t really stop people wild camping – it’s not allowed in most of England but as long as you are discrete and set up as it gets dark, leave when the sun comes up and leave no trace, it’s unlikely anyone will know you were ever there. It’s not a criminal offence, the worst that happens if you’re told to move on, which if you do so will not be a big deal.
Lockdown caused a lot of new people to experience outdoor hobbies, but they lacked the general knowledge and respect to go along with it which has caused a lot of problems for experienced people. There is a paddleboarding route I used to take which required you to portage around an obstacle on private land. It was tolerated by the landowners but once all the new people started sitting on the banks, having picnics and BBQs, and leaving rubbish, the landowners became less tolerant and clamped down.
Ultimately – there’s not much landowners can do other than yell at you as it’s civil matter, but you will need to move on.
Can confirm this guys an absolute tosser! Shit like this is how you know we don’t live in a free country.64
Next week the judge will get an invite to join him and his hounds hunting foxes no doubt.
As a Scot, you have my deepest sympathies. What a fucking bellend
We’re losing everything. This is so sad. When are we going to eat the Tories?
Sometimes I think I wouldn’t defend this country if I had to. I can’t even walk on most of it legally and I don’t even own the land where I sleep in my bed.
😳
Properly pissed by this. Dartmoor is one of the most beautiful places in our country and it’s becoming increasingly hard to explore
I grew up next door to Dartmoor and love and appreciate the space so much. It’s not a nice feeling to see this.
Can’t wait until they take away the little right to roam we have aswell. Absurd the amount of land these people own yet they can’t tolerate the odd tent on occasion. Scotland has it right. We should be getting more access to the outdoors not less. I can’t ride my mountain bike down some moorland footpaths that are solid enough to take cars yet there are bridleways that you can barely walk along
The right to camp on his land might well be legally denied but the right of access to be on most of his land still remains.
I wounder how many people will make a concerted effort to cross his land on Stall Moor common now. I’m fairly local and I certainly will as regularly as I can. If more than a handful of people do the same before it turns into another [Vixen Tor](https://www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk/for_bidden.htm), that’s his idyllic grouse shooting dreams gone.
*He called me a louse and said “Think of the grouse”*
*Well i thought, but I still couldn’t see*
*Why all Kinder Scout and the moors roundabout*
*Couldn’t take both the poor grouse and me*
*He said “All this land is my master’s”*
*At that I stood shaking my head*
*No man has the right to own mountains*
*Any more than the deep ocean bed*
*I’m a rambler, I’m a rambler from Manchester way*
*I get all me pleasure the hard moorland way*
*I may be a wageslave on Monday*
*But I am a free man on Sunday*
– Manchester Rambler.
Feels pretty fitting here. Absolute nonsense.
Edit: formatting
Somebody needs to organise a summer of protest camping festivals on this arsehole’s land.
Shit I’ve just been wild camping anywhere I want all these years
This guy is a cunt and just wants his shooting lodge to not have to deal with anyone other than those paying to use his land. I’m on Dartmoor regularly and rarely see wild campers as they always tend to stay well away from paths and leave nothing behind.
It really needs to also be said that the habitat that works for shooting is not Dartmoor’s natural state and it’s not the state that the park wants it to go into – which is returning to being heavily wooded. This wanker wants nothing more than moorlands with gorse bushes so he can use our national park as his personal playground – and those willing to pay him.
No right to roam, no right to camp, fewer rights to protest, we are only a stones throw away from the poor houses opening back up.
His “estate” looks like a good place for a rave to me.
How do we hurt this person? Not physically but fincially he needs to be hurt.
Turns out, most of this was common land until the rich stole it. See the Enclosure Acts.
[removed]
Misanthropy seems more and more rational as I get older. The message is becoming louder and louder that the only thing common people are allowed to do is sit at home, go to work, or do a short list of activities that all cost £50+ per person.
How can a person even own 4000 acres of Dartmoor ffs it makes no sense. How did they earn the land? It’s not theirs in any way that makes sense. It belongs to the UK. How can a small handful of probably Tories own something like Dartmoor. Disgusting, fox hunting, money grubbing, barely sentient wank flannels.
I grew up around and on Dartmoor a lot, and did a lot of overnight camping and hiking for Ten Tours and with the scouts. As a teenager it was amazing to be able to spend the weekend in the middle of nowhere, pitch up camp in a baron place, pack up and go without any commotion (apart from the time when we ended up camping on the location of a pagan ritual which was taking place at 7am the next morning…).
I’m so disappointed by this. I hope it doesn’t impact the running of the Ten Tors, but I’m also just gutted in general that it might affect anyone’s right to camp there. It’s something I’ve wanted to do again over the last few years, and was hoping to go camping on the moors again this spring/summer – if anything it’s made me want to go even more, but sadly because it might not be long before large areas of the moors are effectively off limits for the average Joe…
I’ve always loved the right to roam up here in Scotland. It’s abit wild to see it dead and dying in England without much outcry.
*From the article*
The park authorities are understood to be consulting with lawyers and strengthening their case before appealing against the decision, which has dismayed nature lovers and right-to-roam campaigners across the country. In response to the case, the Labour party has vowed that if it wins power, it will expand the right to roam and wild camp across England.
Labour chipping in at the end there….
I read the title and thought “oh have the moors been getting damaged or something”
No. Just another prick being a prick because he has money and is allowed to be a prick
Your kidding , I was planning to go , loads go there for that , freedom stealing bastards
I happened to finished reading Nick Hayes’ “The Book of Trespass” this morning, I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about this issue.
As a local, I can’t wait for my camper van to break down there every weekend in summer. I bet he won’t move fox hunts (cockney rhyming slang) on either as they’re all his friends that help get this through.
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from off the goose
The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine
The poor and wretched don’t escape
When they conspire the law to break
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
And geese will still a common lack
Until they go and steal it back
-17th century British protest song against enclosure
Me and my friends have been regular visitors to Dartmoor since we were just 15 years old, often travelling there to get away from it all for a weekend or so during the spring and summer months. Many of my favourite memories of my teenage years are from my times wild camping on the moors with my mates so seeing this article is very depressing. I hope it doesn’t deter anyone from wild camping there in the future just because of one grumpy old sod.
Need a widescale Dartmoor trespass. I am up for it.
49 comments
I just submitted this myself!
This guy owns more land than any person can reasonably use and is wealthy beyond the wildest dreams of any of us:
*”Dartmoor was the only place in England and Wales where there is a right to camp under the stars without seeking permission from the landowner.”*
“*Alexander Darwall, a hedge fund manager and Dartmoor’s sixth largest landowner, brought the case against the national park, arguing that the right to wild camp on the moors never existed. Darwall, the owner of the 1,619-hectare (4,000-acre) Blachford estate on southern Dartmoor, offers pheasant shoots, deerstalking and holiday rentals on his land.*”
Wanker.
This is a terrible decision we should do the equivalent of the historic mass trespass on kinder scout and go and do a mass wild camp on Dartmoor.
Absolutely disgusting stuff, so that’s another one of our rights chucked on the ever growing bonfire to benefit the wealthy people who really run our society. Why don’t they just make it illegal for us plebs to go outside if we’re not working and get it over with?
“The plebians shall only be allowed outside to travel to and from the bismuth mines.”
This is the trajectory. The ruling class want the countryside for ‘nature’ (and themselves), and the plebs confined to ’15-minute cities’. The reverse of the Inclosure Acts.
People have been warning about this for a long time. It’s happening.
Looking at this with horror from Scotland and feeling incredibly thankful for the right to roam. Genuinely think Scotland is one of the freest countries in the world for it. So shite that some cunt landowner can just come along and stop people from exploring and enjoying the country.
Really hope people in England can fight back against this and win their rights.
Absolute bollocks.
The entire case hinged in whether camping is “recreation”.
Of course it bloody is.
What’s ridiculous is that while camping isn’t strictly permitted in England and Wales, it isn’t a criminal offence either. It’s a civil matter, unless you make it aggravated trespass by refusing to leave. So people will wild camp anyway – there’s now just a good chance you’ll have to deal with this tosser pheasant-hunting arsehole if you happen to pick one of his fields.
Will happily contribute to any crowd funding for the national park to appeal this.
To say camping isn’t recreation is absurd.
And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon Englands mountains green,
But don’t wild camp on Albion’s moors.
Well I will happily donate to a crowdfunding campaign to help overturn this nonsense and have wild camping explicitly allowed on the moor.
What a sad little man wanting to take recreation from the people.
They’re coming for us.
Not just camping.
Landowners have started employing security guards with aggressive dogs to move on people wild swimming. Not to mention it’s a hobby enjoyed mostly by women so you’ve got male security guards watching women get changed in front of them then shooing them away.
Can’t camp, can’t swim, heck outside of Scotland you don’t have a right to walk through most fields either.
The ruling class of wealthy landowners don’t want us enjoying the countryside because it gets in the way of their pheasant shooting and deer stalking (the guy who brought this Dartmoor case runs pheasant shoots and deer stalks, I’m not just sliding that in as a dig).
Also know that the Conservative government were last year proposing to make trespass a criminal offence, so if you wandered off a public footpath, you could land up with a criminal record.
We have to resist this, else our rights will just get further and further eroded. Chip in for the appeal crowdfunder. Mass trespass. Lobby your MPs. Once these rights to leisure are gone they’ll be bloody difficult to get back.
We should repeat the old right to roam protests and all collectively camp on this bloke’s lane on the same night.
And there it is wasn’t really expecting anything else to come of this, but there we go another step in the wrong direction fuck these wealthy land owners.
Please go out and wild camp while obviously adhering to leave no trace.
Petition popular UK based YouTubers who camp to join this cause, it will bring in much needed support.
This is terrible.
Coming from the US, I really missed wild camping and Dartmoor was one of the only respites I had short of travelling to Scotland. Some sort of Right to Roam as found in Scotland or the Scandinavian nations wouldn’t go amiss!
Fuck this nonsense
We need a major rethink of our rights in this country.
92% of the countryside and 97% of rivers are off limits to the public. How can that be right?
The cunt also donates tens of thousands to UKIP and Vote Leave. These people are not on your side.
Whilst it’s a shame, this won’t really stop people wild camping – it’s not allowed in most of England but as long as you are discrete and set up as it gets dark, leave when the sun comes up and leave no trace, it’s unlikely anyone will know you were ever there. It’s not a criminal offence, the worst that happens if you’re told to move on, which if you do so will not be a big deal.
Lockdown caused a lot of new people to experience outdoor hobbies, but they lacked the general knowledge and respect to go along with it which has caused a lot of problems for experienced people. There is a paddleboarding route I used to take which required you to portage around an obstacle on private land. It was tolerated by the landowners but once all the new people started sitting on the banks, having picnics and BBQs, and leaving rubbish, the landowners became less tolerant and clamped down.
Ultimately – there’s not much landowners can do other than yell at you as it’s civil matter, but you will need to move on.
Can confirm this guys an absolute tosser! Shit like this is how you know we don’t live in a free country.64
Next week the judge will get an invite to join him and his hounds hunting foxes no doubt.
As a Scot, you have my deepest sympathies. What a fucking bellend
We’re losing everything. This is so sad. When are we going to eat the Tories?
Sometimes I think I wouldn’t defend this country if I had to. I can’t even walk on most of it legally and I don’t even own the land where I sleep in my bed.
😳
Properly pissed by this. Dartmoor is one of the most beautiful places in our country and it’s becoming increasingly hard to explore
I grew up next door to Dartmoor and love and appreciate the space so much. It’s not a nice feeling to see this.
Can’t wait until they take away the little right to roam we have aswell. Absurd the amount of land these people own yet they can’t tolerate the odd tent on occasion. Scotland has it right. We should be getting more access to the outdoors not less. I can’t ride my mountain bike down some moorland footpaths that are solid enough to take cars yet there are bridleways that you can barely walk along
The right to camp on his land might well be legally denied but the right of access to be on most of his land still remains.
I wounder how many people will make a concerted effort to cross his land on Stall Moor common now. I’m fairly local and I certainly will as regularly as I can. If more than a handful of people do the same before it turns into another [Vixen Tor](https://www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk/for_bidden.htm), that’s his idyllic grouse shooting dreams gone.
*He called me a louse and said “Think of the grouse”*
*Well i thought, but I still couldn’t see*
*Why all Kinder Scout and the moors roundabout*
*Couldn’t take both the poor grouse and me*
*He said “All this land is my master’s”*
*At that I stood shaking my head*
*No man has the right to own mountains*
*Any more than the deep ocean bed*
*I’m a rambler, I’m a rambler from Manchester way*
*I get all me pleasure the hard moorland way*
*I may be a wageslave on Monday*
*But I am a free man on Sunday*
– Manchester Rambler.
Feels pretty fitting here. Absolute nonsense.
Edit: formatting
Somebody needs to organise a summer of protest camping festivals on this arsehole’s land.
Shit I’ve just been wild camping anywhere I want all these years
This guy is a cunt and just wants his shooting lodge to not have to deal with anyone other than those paying to use his land. I’m on Dartmoor regularly and rarely see wild campers as they always tend to stay well away from paths and leave nothing behind.
It really needs to also be said that the habitat that works for shooting is not Dartmoor’s natural state and it’s not the state that the park wants it to go into – which is returning to being heavily wooded. This wanker wants nothing more than moorlands with gorse bushes so he can use our national park as his personal playground – and those willing to pay him.
No right to roam, no right to camp, fewer rights to protest, we are only a stones throw away from the poor houses opening back up.
His “estate” looks like a good place for a rave to me.
How do we hurt this person? Not physically but fincially he needs to be hurt.
Turns out, most of this was common land until the rich stole it. See the Enclosure Acts.
[removed]
Misanthropy seems more and more rational as I get older. The message is becoming louder and louder that the only thing common people are allowed to do is sit at home, go to work, or do a short list of activities that all cost £50+ per person.
How can a person even own 4000 acres of Dartmoor ffs it makes no sense. How did they earn the land? It’s not theirs in any way that makes sense. It belongs to the UK. How can a small handful of probably Tories own something like Dartmoor. Disgusting, fox hunting, money grubbing, barely sentient wank flannels.
I grew up around and on Dartmoor a lot, and did a lot of overnight camping and hiking for Ten Tours and with the scouts. As a teenager it was amazing to be able to spend the weekend in the middle of nowhere, pitch up camp in a baron place, pack up and go without any commotion (apart from the time when we ended up camping on the location of a pagan ritual which was taking place at 7am the next morning…).
I’m so disappointed by this. I hope it doesn’t impact the running of the Ten Tors, but I’m also just gutted in general that it might affect anyone’s right to camp there. It’s something I’ve wanted to do again over the last few years, and was hoping to go camping on the moors again this spring/summer – if anything it’s made me want to go even more, but sadly because it might not be long before large areas of the moors are effectively off limits for the average Joe…
I’ve always loved the right to roam up here in Scotland. It’s abit wild to see it dead and dying in England without much outcry.
*From the article*
The park authorities are understood to be consulting with lawyers and strengthening their case before appealing against the decision, which has dismayed nature lovers and right-to-roam campaigners across the country. In response to the case, the Labour party has vowed that if it wins power, it will expand the right to roam and wild camp across England.
Labour chipping in at the end there….
I read the title and thought “oh have the moors been getting damaged or something”
No. Just another prick being a prick because he has money and is allowed to be a prick
Need a repeat of the [Kinder Scout trespass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_trespass_of_Kinder_Scout) but with tents.
Your kidding , I was planning to go , loads go there for that , freedom stealing bastards
I happened to finished reading Nick Hayes’ “The Book of Trespass” this morning, I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about this issue.
As a local, I can’t wait for my camper van to break down there every weekend in summer. I bet he won’t move fox hunts (cockney rhyming slang) on either as they’re all his friends that help get this through.
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from off the goose
The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine
The poor and wretched don’t escape
When they conspire the law to break
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
And geese will still a common lack
Until they go and steal it back
-17th century British protest song against enclosure
Me and my friends have been regular visitors to Dartmoor since we were just 15 years old, often travelling there to get away from it all for a weekend or so during the spring and summer months. Many of my favourite memories of my teenage years are from my times wild camping on the moors with my mates so seeing this article is very depressing. I hope it doesn’t deter anyone from wild camping there in the future just because of one grumpy old sod.
Need a widescale Dartmoor trespass. I am up for it.
[The Cornwood Shoot](http://thecornwoodshoot.com/index.php) Make of that what you will.
According to the 1985 Dartmoor Commons Act, the public have the right of access, on foot, or on horseback for the purposes of open air recreation.
So, one night not be able to pitch a tent…
But that doesn’t prohibit a rave.