When you live in “the prettiest village in England” you expect to share it with tourists clogging the streets. What you do not expect is one of their drones to film you taking a bath.
The residents of Castle Combe, in the Cotswolds, have had to place “no drone zone” signs in their windows, the local church and public car park after being repeatedly buzzed by camera-wielding aircraft flying over their gardens, streets and in one instance by their bathroom window.
Police were called last month when one drone pilot refused to land his aircraft after filming children playing in a back garden and flying laps up and down the high street at first-floor window level.
After verbally abusing residents who asked him to respect their privacy, police officers were called and forced him to delete his video.
Hilary Baker, 69, a retired police officer who has lived in the village for 35 years, said: “It’s almost like some of the visitors have lost their moral compass, they have lost their boundaries.” She added that since the Covid-19 pandemic there had been an increase of drones flown over the Wiltshire village by tourists for their social media channels.
“When you go into your back garden and put your washing out and there is a drone hovering 20 yards above your head, it really quite rankles,” she said. “Another neighbour had been working in his garden and jumped in the bath and there was a drone at his bathroom window, watching him in the bath. You just think, really?
“I should think on a monthly basis I will get verbal abuse [for asking them to stop].”
Hilary Baker and Mac Turner
ADRIAN SHERRATT FOR THE TIMES
Even before the drones appeared, tourists have been overstepping boundaries in the village for years. There are handwritten signs asking visitors not to pick flowers planted outside homes and not to walk down the side alleys of houses.
“Gateways can be locked but people still climb over them and picnic on the private lawns by the river,” Baker said. “Most people are lovely but they have got to get ‘the picture’.”
Castle Combe has been a tourist destination since the 19th century. People have been drawn to the historic centre of the village where a new house has not been built since about 1600. It has also been the setting for films such as Doctor Dolittle, released in 1967, and Steven Spielberg’s War Horse in 2011.
A major pull for the thousands of tourists who visit each week are the videos of the village they see on social media sites such as Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.
A visitor survey last year found 51 per cent came after seeing the village online
ADRIAN SHERRATT FOR THE TIMES
Lydia Chia, 27, and her sister Deborah, 24, from Singapore, were visiting this week, posing for a plethora of photos against the small honey-coloured stone houses as well as on the bridge over the tranquil brook.
“I saw it on my friend’s Instagram and a little bit on TikTok,” Lydia, a customer success manager, said. “It’s really pretty. I pick where to visit based on pictures and aesthetics, and whether or not it’s instagrammable.”
Her sister, who is studying marketing at the University of Stirling, said the village was “relatively less crowded than London city centre” and “more chilled”.
Deborah Chia, left and her sister, Lydia
ADRIAN SHERRATT FOR THE TIMES
Fred Winup, a retired bank director who has been the chairman of the parish council for 18 years, conducted a visitor survey last year which found that 51 per cent of visitors came after seeing the village online.
Winup once had a drone follow him along the high street “just five feet above my head”, he said, adding: “It was a Californian [piloting it], he was a nice guy who didn’t know the rules and said he was sorry.”
The parish council has persuaded Wiltshire council to erect a sign at the public car park, built 730 metres up steep and narrow roads from the centre, warning drone pilots: “If you use these devices where people can expect privacy, such as inside their home or garden, you are likely to be contravening CAA [Civil Aviation Authority] guidelines”.
ADRIAN SHERRATT FOR THE TIMES
The rules and guidelines around flying different types of drones can be complicated but usually involve having a line of sight of the drone, not getting close to crowds or buildings, and respecting people’s privacy.
“People do lose control of drones and they could take an eye out,” Winup said.
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Some drone operators have crashed their devices onto the church roof and one ended up stuck in a tree in a resident’s back garden.
Mike, a renewable energy consultant who moved to the village 20 years ago from Clapham, London, said his daughters would sunbathe in bikinis in the back garden and that it was a “gross invasion of privacy” when a drone flew over his garden several times at close range.
“I have said to people, ‘Go and perv somewhere else’,” he said. “The back gardens are our little havens of privacy.”
There are only 39 full-time residents living in lower Castle Combe, where the tourists congregate, whereas 20 years ago, residents said, the houses were almost all occupied by people who had lived there for decades.
ADRIAN SHERRATT FOR THE TIMES
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Some have been bought up by Americans and Australians, whom few locals have seen in the decades since they turned the properties into holiday rentals. Others are second homes for Britons.
Anna, a local business owner, said: “If I didn’t have a business here I would be seriously pissed off. It’s lost its community and I think one day we will get fed up with it.”