In
the Scottish Highlands the tree line can be down at sea level and with
relatively high latitudes and changeable Atlantic weather the area is true
mountain although most summits are no more than a thousand metres above
sea level.
The main
land use is the sporting estate and Scotland is one of the last places
in Europe where large areas of wilderness can still be bought and sold.
One prime area so remote that remnants of the great Forestof Caledon can
still be found is Knoydart (pronounced Noi-dart). It is a peninsula of
30,000 hectares in the wettest part of the Highlands and juts out towards
the Isle of Skye . Its total population is 70.
Knoydart
has just been bought by a Foundation comprised of the residents and contributing
well wishers.
Scottish
author and mountaineer Cameron McNeish tells a story of land reform
which would not be unusual if it were set in a remote corner of the Third
World.
t's been a drawn-out
saga of epic proportions,
fit to take its place in the treasure trove of Celtic legend. A bitter-sweet
tale of suffering, feudal injustice and dashed hopes, the Knoydart story
epitomises the reasons why land reform in the highlands is so necessary.
Now, the 70-strong community of Knoydart follows in the footsteps of those
other land reform pioneers from Assynt, Eigg and Valtos and have to face
up to the responsibilities of land ownership. It's a challenge they are
prepared for.
"The people of Knoydart are now
free from the threat of suffering and injustice, which was once so brutally
inflicted by its owners during the clearances of 1853 and at the times
of the land raiders in 1948. This is a time for cautious celebration,"
said Bernie Evemy, Knoydart's sub-postmaster and a director of the Knoydart
Foundation. "We have won the first stage, but our struggle must continue
if we are to once again establish Knoydart as a thriving community."
It's been a long time since Knoydart
could be described as a thriving community. The area's struggles began
soon after the failure of the 1745 rebellion when a long, drawn-out period
of emigration began. A succession of potato blights and the failure of
migrating herring shoals brought famine and poverty to the area. Following
the death of Aenas of Glengarry in 1852, his widow Jospehine
MacDonnell ordered her factor, Alexander Grant, to clear the remaining tenants to
make way for sheep.
Four hundred people were evicted,
their homes torn down around them, and they were hounded like animals on
to the Sillary, the transport ship supplied by the British government.
A report from The Times describes
the scene: "So long as there was hope of being left with a covering over
their heads, the cottars were comparatively quiet, but now that they were
homeless many of them became frantic with grief, and were driven to seek
shelter in some of the neighbouring quarries, where some are now living,
and others among the caves of the rocks with which this wild district of
the highlands abounds."
The report's conclusion was cruelly
prophetic: "It is thus clear that the highlands will all become sheepwalks
and shooting grounds before long. " Less
than a hundred years later seven
local men, recently returned from the war, were angered at the changes
forced on them by an uncaring landlord. Rather than accept what was happening
they decided to fight for justice. They passionately believed they had
a moral right to form crofts and work the land that was deliberately being
allowed to go to waste, asserting that they were the subject of twentieth
century clearances - this time to make way for well-off sportsmen and deer
instead of sheep. Their opponent was a millionaire brewer by the name of
Arthur Ronald Nall-Cain, later to become Lord Brocket. An old Etonian and
a graduate of Oxford he spent some years as
a barrister in London before
becoming a Conservative MP, but his politics weren't purely confined to
Britain. A staunch member of the Anglo-German fellowship he was a close
friend of Ribbentrop, had met Hitler and was well-known as a Nazi sympathiser.
Brocket wanted to keep Knoydart for himself and his sporting friends. He
discouraged visitors, made many of the estate's older employees redundant,
forced them from their homes and refused to maintain the estate. The
scourge of depopulation began all over again. Resorting to the tactics pioneered
in the days of the old Highland Land League, the Seven Men of Knoydart,
as they became known, staged a land raid, clearing small areas of land,
marking them out and claiming them as their own.
Their case was doomed to failure.
Brocket had powerful friends and even the socialist government of the time
singularly failed to help the men. After a lengthy legal battle they had
to give up the land they had seized. Their efforts are commemorated by
a small memorial plaque in Inverie which states:
"Justice! In 1948, near this cairn,
the Seven Men of Knoydart staked claims to secure a place to live and work.
For over a century Highlanders had been forced to use land raids to gain
a foothold where their forebears lived. Their struggle should inspire new
generations of Scots to gain such rights by just laws. History will judge
harshly the oppressive laws that have led to the virtual extinction of
a unique culture from this beautiful place."
Bold words, but the mis-management
continued. In 1982 the Ministry of Defence showed an interest in buying
the whole 55,000 acre Knoydart peninsula for a training area. Appalled
at the thought of war games in such a wonderful landscape and the resultant
loss of access there was widespread protest from mountain user groups and
conservationists. The MoD eventually capitulated only for the estate to
be sold to a property speculator who broke the entire peninsula into smaller
parcels and sold them piecemeal. The rest is history, and the residents
of the comparatively small Knoydart Estate have continued to suffer at
the hands of poor and insensitive land ownership, much of which has been
reported in the magazine "The Great Outdoors" over the last few years.
One man who has been a staunch supporter
of the local people since the early eighties is Chris Brasher, whose trust
(largely made up of royalties from the sale of Brasher boots) contributed
£200,000 to the Knoydart Foundation. "Since 1982 I have watched the
decline of Knoydart with a growing anxiety -a decline caused by the neglect
of the entire fabric of the estate. As that physical decline has deepened
so has the spirit and will of the community strengthened. The community
buy-out has only happened because the people of Knoydart have been united
in their desire to be masters of their own future," he said.
But despite their undoubted determination,
the community of Knoydart couldn't have done it on its own. A neighbouring
landowner, the John Muir Trust, added £250,000 to Brasher's contribution
and another neighbour, Sir Cameron Macintosh returned to the fray after
his earlier withdrawal, this time promising to match any contribution by
the Government. Late, but nevertheless welcome, the Government eventually
did contribute £75,000, through Highlands and Islands Enterprise,
and that was topped up by £50,000 from Scottish Natural Heritage
and a £100,000 anonymous donation from, according to Chris Brasher,
a "half-Welsh/half-English lover of mountains and wild country who has
never set foot on Knoydart".
Such conservation partnerships are
at the sharp end of land reform in Scotland. Nigel Hawkins, director of
the John Muir Trust, told me: "Many people talk about partnerships but
here in Knoydart we are at the sharp end in delivering a partnership which
is very much in tune with the times and which offers the very best hope
for one of the most wild and beautiful places in the country and its local
community. Bringing together community and conservation interests in ownership
and management of areas like Knoydart is the best possible way of securing
their long-term future."
But the John Muir Trust and the
others members of the partnership point out that the purchase of the estate
is only the first round in the battle to save it. The directors of the
foundation are anxious to renew their public appeal to raise funds to allow
them to implement their draft business plan and make the estate viable.
They have launched a new appeal to raise £30,000 and Highland Council's
development company, Highland Prospects, is presently considering a loan
facility towards working capital.
The business plan is very much geared
towards a programme of initiatives that encompass social, economic and
environmental aspects of the Knoydart Estate, particularly in redressing
the neglect which the area has suffered over many years. The key objective
is to make Knoydart self-sustaining within five years through the implementation
of a number of projects including the recruitment of an estate manager
to administer and oversee projects on a day-to-day basis, the upgrading
of local infrastructure like the dam and hydro-electric generator, the
repair of property, the encouragement of new business initiatives and implementation
of the forestry project.
Crucially, the foundation sees the
encouragement of green tourism as a primary part of their long term strategy.
Maintenance of access to the hills is paramount, as is the upgrading of
footpaths, the establishment of a visitor information facility and the
implementation of conservation initiatives. Deer stalking will be run in
harmony with other land uses and it's also hoped to encourage people with
business flair and skills, from outside Knoydart, to move to the area and
join the community.
It's significant that the deal should
be concluded so soon after the 50th anniversary of the Seven Men of Knoydart's
celebrated land raid. One of those men, Archie MacDougall, in his book
"Knoydart? The Last Scottish Land Raid", suggested that the depopulation
of the highlands would continue until there was legislation to have a compulsory
land register and to stop the purchase of undeveloped areas of land by
speculators. The successful purchase of the Knoydart Estate has highlighted
a united will from the local community, its conservationist partners and,
at long last, a sympathetic Government. The future of the highlands is
looking brighter than it has done for many a long year.
•Donations to the public
appeal can be made by sending cheques to The Knoydart Foundation, Knoydart,
by Mallaig, Scotland PH41 4PL or contact the appeal office on 01687 462906.
"The Great Outdoors" is published monthly from Glasgow portraying
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