Guns fall silent at Madonna's pile

[Tony Gosling]

Guns fall silent at Madonna's pile
Now the ramblers will be moving in then!?!


Madonna: 'I'll never kill again'
07/11/2005 - 09:34:02
http://www.breakingnews.ie/story.asp?j=23820888&p=z38zx99z&n=23821072&x=

Pop queen Madonna has vowed to quit shooting pheasants on her English
country estate, after maiming a bird left her filled with self-hatred.

The Like A Prayer hitmaker loved the idea of learning traditional rural
pursuits at stately home Ashcombe Manor, and invested thousands in suitable
tweed outfits.
But after successfully shooting her first prey, the singer admits she
couldn't bear to see the pheasant's pain and suffering.

She says: "That all changed when a bird dropped in front of me that I'd
shot. It wasn't dead.

"Blood was gushing from it's mouth and it was struggling up this hill and I
thought: 'Oh God, I did that.' I am not a vegetarian and I understand
animals die for my meals. I respect that, but I just couldn't do it any
more. I haven't shot since."



Oi! Get off my laaaand!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/entertainment/days_out/madonna_ashcombe/madon
na_ashcombe.shtml
18 June 2004 1409 BST

Madonna and her husband Guy Ritchie have partly won their appeal to stop
ramblers             from walking across most of their £9m country estate.
With all the interest, BBC Wiltshire went to see what the fuss is all about...

"The stately homes of England how beautiful they stand,
To prove the upper classes have still the upper hand;"

So claimed the sharp-witted Noel Coward in 1938 when England's country
houses were slowly dying as a result of neglect and bad debts.

But look at things today and a different picture emerges; Noel Coward's
Elders and Borrowmeres have been replaced by the beautiful people of the
pop world, with Toyah, Sting and, more recently, Madonna being the prime
suspects in Wiltshire.



Madonna wins ramblers land battle
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/wiltshire/4092285.stm		

Madonna has stopped ramblers walking across most of her estate.
from pop star Madonna's country estate for half the year because of the
risk of being shot.
Fifty-four acres of the 1,132-acre Ashcombe Estate on the Wiltshire/Dorset
border were to be opened to walkers on Tuesday under new right to roam laws.

But the Countryside Agency has agreed that ramblers will be banned from the
open part of the land from September to February - during the shooting
season.

During the rest of the year the small section of land will be open.

The ban has been enforced because the singer said there was a chance that
walkers could be accidentally shot as shoots are held on the land.

In June, Madonna and husband Guy Ritchie won their bid to prevent ramblers
from walking across the majority of the estate.


Burial site
The couple claimed at a public inquiry in May that their human rights would
be infringed.

The Planning Inspectorate ruling means walkers are not able to go within
sight of the couple's home, sitting in the estate's grounds.

Quakers, however, will be allowed on the land to visit an ancient burial
site.

The Shaftsbury Preparative Meeting scatters ashes of the dead at the site,
and holds a pilgrimage there every 10 years.