Wild Land News no 58, Autumn 2003

COMMENT Article

A tale of two chiefs

Three years after placing the Cuillin Hills on the market in order to raise money to repair the roof of Dunvegan Castle, John McLeod appears to have abandoned hope of a sale. Instead, he is offering to hand the mountains to the nation in a deal involving the establishment of a trust to finance the repair work, while allowing the McLeods to continue living there. Funding would be sought from various heritage bodies, and discussions with Highlands and Islands Enterprise and Highland Council have taken place.

Despite the high profile of the proposed sale, it seems that uncertainties as to whether John McLeod actually owned the mountains were instrumental in deterring private purchasers. Painstaking research by the mountaineer and historian, Alan Blackshaw, had cast doubts over the validity of the McLeod claim to title at the time land reform legislation was taking shape in the Scottish Parliament. Perhaps too much public scrutiny of the Cuillin issue would have rocked the boat, but the Scottish Executive and the Crown Estate showed great reluctance to get involved with the case (see WLN 50 & 51). Brian Wilson MP concluded that ". any meaningful challenge to such claims of ownership will only come through legislative change rather than interpretation of existing Scots law".

Although it will be reassuring to see the Cuillin officially belonging to the nation, the whole episode re-opens questions which have hardly been answered in the land reform debate. Whether John McLeod is selling or giving away the Cuillin, or something in between, do we accept the notion that a range of mountains can actually be personal "property" just like manufactured goods? The Cuillin are our most spectacular hills and their proposed sale caused a storm of protest, but how rounded and grassy must a hill be before we quietly accept its disposal on the international property market?

Amid great controversy, the Scottish Parliament's feudal reform legislation conferred outright ownership of land on titleholders. So while it might have been convenient to allow a foreign tycoon to pay for the repairs to Dunvegan Castle and call himself the "owner" of the Cuillin hills (assuming he could not do anything outrageous with them), are we really prepared to sell our heritage on such terms? Do we really want to offer our land - the very fabric of our nation - as a tradeable commodity on the international property market?

Shortly after this news about the Cuillin, it was announced that Ian McNeil, a retired American law professor, had offered to hand over his 9,000 acre crofting estate on Barra to the local community. His father had established the family's claim to the McNeil chieftainship in 1937, but in 2000 Ian McNeil had handed over the ancestral seat, Kisimul Castle, to Historic Scotland on a 1000-year lease for an annual rent of £1 and a bottle of whisky. The 9,000 acres will now be transferred to Scottish ministers, and the Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department will manage the land until the community have made a decision on whether to go ahead and accept it.

This kind of generosity is unlikely to become particularly commonplace in the Highlands. But in the year that the Assynt crofters are celebrating the 10th anniversary of their pioneering buyout, the Scottish Executive is considering changes to extend the Community Right-to-Buy to a wider range of communities. There is clearly a growing awareness that communities do not require someone to own the land for them before they can live and work it. The landowner per se is superfluous. What people need is the land, not the lairds.