A leading private tennis club has reportedly had a group of geese shot dead after members said the birds repeatedly fouled the courts.
St George’s Hill Lawn Tennis Club in Weybridge, a venue often associated with celebrities and billionaires, sits inside an exclusive gated estate widely described as the UK’s answer to Beverly Hills.
The private enclave, known locally as ‘The Hill’, has counted some of Britain’s best-known entertainers among its residents, including Sir Cliff Richard, John Lennon, Sir Ringo Starr and Sir Tom Jones.
It has also attracted major names from the sporting world, with John Terry, Sue Barker, Jenson Button and 1966 World Cup winner Sir Geoff Hurst among those linked to the gated community.
But the club’s manicured grounds have now become the centre of controversy, with members claiming its resident geese were no longer tolerated after causing problems around the tennis courts.
The usually peaceful setting was disturbed when marksmen were brought in to carry out a cull of the birds.
Neighbours said they were woken by gunfire in the early hours of July 16, before later learning that eight geese had been killed, including goslings.
The decision has prompted surprise given the club had previously appeared to embrace the geese, sharing images of them in posts on social media.
The St George’s Hill Lawn Tennis Club sits within a gated estate in Weybridge, Surrey
The tennis club shared a photo of two adult Canada geese with two goslings
In a post in April last year, St George’s shared a photograph of two adult Canada geese with two goslings, captioned: ‘We have baby goslings on our Lakeside Terrace!’
In 2024, they also shared a post of a family of the birds on the courts in the rain, captioned: ‘At least the Canadian geese family enjoyed the courts today.’
The 16-acre club boasts 3,700 members and charges £2,664 in annual fees plus an entrance charge for new members of £2,000.
Opened by Prince Alexander of Teck and his wife, Princess Alice, in 1913, the Surrey club has 34 tennis courts, 13 of which are grass, and regularly hosts international tournaments.
Emma Raducanu triumphed in the UK Pro Series and Classic Tournament a year before winning the 2021 US Open.
Members were furious when rumours began to swirl about the culling of the club’s popular residents.
One member said on social media that an adult and gosling which survived the cull were found ‘in a distressed state wandering the local area’.
They added: ‘The tennis club claim they were pests and murdered them by the club’s lake which they used as their home much to the delight of the young and old club members. Such barbaric action in a situation where local wildlife organisations would have taken them in.’
One longstanding member of the exclusive sports club told The Times: ‘The members have always liked the geese. It is sometimes a bit annoying because they amble on to the courts and leave their poo.
‘But that does not mean they had to be shot. It’s a private estate and the residents are concerned about a firearm being brought in without any warning.’
Another player added: ‘The club management ordered this because they felt the birds were making the courts messy. There was no consultation with the members. The club is in a beautiful setting and the birds were part of that.’
Some members claimed that the birds had not been culled and were instead relocated to a nearby lake at the Claremont Landscape Garden.
The shooting was reportedly carried out by a contractor with a licence from Natural England to cull some species, to preserve public health or safety.
In another post, a family of the geese were pictured on one of the tennis courts
Tennis fan Sir Cliff Richard once lived on the private estate in Weybirdge, Surrey
Adult Canada geese produce droppings around every six minutes, totalling nearly 1kg a day and numbers of the birds have begun to grow in the UK.
The club’s chief executive Miles Hill said in a statement that the decision was taken ‘on the grounds of public health and safety’.
He said that grounds staff were unable to keep up with the volume of faeces being produced by the birds.
Mr Hill said the club is looking at trying to prevent the geese from gathering in heavily used member areas, rather than relying on relocation.
Canada geese are believed to have been introduced to the UK when King Charles II received the birds as a gift from a Russian ambassador in 1664. They were installed in St James’s Park, central London.
The British Trust for Ornithology says numbers of the birds in the UK have more than doubled since 1984. The current UK population is about 160,000.
Populations are now widespread across England and Wales. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds reported in April that the number of Canada geese in Wales increased by 753 per cent between 1995 and 2024.
