In heritage we trust: Preserving nature and history for the nation
National Trust for Scotland marks 90 years as protector of the country’s heritage, writes
We’re going to consider what the Trust needs to be and do in order to remain relevant and resilient
NTS serves the nation as a cabinet into which it can put some of its valuable things
TUCKED deep in Galloway Forest Park, Loch Dee has been described as a “lonely mountain lake in a treeless waste”, with just heath, moss, rocks and stones clinging to its edges and surrounded by one vast sheep farm.
At least, according to 19th-century writer Malcolm Harper’s Rambles in Galloway, it had some redeeming features, as he wrote: “Loch Dee abounds with trout and nowhere could the angler with a taste for the sterner beauties of nature spend a holiday more advantageously.”
As delightful as it sounds for the trout angler who wishes to get away from it all, lonely Loch Dee may not be the first place many might think of as being the catalyst for the creation of a national conservation charity that would go on to span nine decades of protecting Scotland’s heritage and natural beauty. It would also, of course, lead to countless scones being served in its tea rooms at castles, watermills, famous birthplaces and battlefields featuring a multitude of costumed guides. Not to mention several million seabirds – from the cliffs of Unst in Shetland to the creeks of Rockcliffe in the Solway Firth – that are also under the charity’s wing.
However, in 1929, the future of Loch
Dee and the prospect that it might fall into English hands would set the wheels in motion for the creation, two years later, of a new organisation designed to protect Scotland’s precious assets for the future.
Founded 90 years ago next month, the National Trust for Scotland now conserves 76,000 hectares of countryside from
Wester Ross to Ayrshire – the same area as all of Scotland’s cities combined.
It also looks after 245 miles of mountain footpaths, 10,000 archaeological sites, 300,000 precious objects and works of art, 100 historic buildings – among them 11 castles – and eight National Nature Reserves.
Its scale is immense, spanning areas as diverse as distant St Kilda, abandoned by its islanders in August 1930 when life on the rocky island became impossible; to Fair Isle, the most remote inhabited British island; the wild beauty of Ben Lomond; Robert Adam’s cliff-top architectural masterpiece, Culzean Castle; the birthplaces of Robert Burns and JM Barrie; and the grandeur of Pollok House in Glasgow.
While today the Trust, the buildings, estates and islands it cares for are part of the fabric of Scottish life, in 1929 it was a similar body in England that held the cards. The Loch Dee estate in Galloway had been offered to the Association for the Preservation (now Protection) of Rural Scotland as gift, but the organisation had been unable to accept it.
Talk turned instead to the National
Trust in England. Founded in 1895 by a trio of Victorian philanthropists anxious to preserve the country’s historic sites and countryside from the rise of industrialisation, it had the powers to acquire land and buildings in Scotland.
The idea that Loch Dee estate could be managed from south of the Border focused Scottish minds.
The family of the Eton-educated former Conservative MP and landowner Sir John Stirling Maxwell had lived for six centuries on land within what is now Pollok Country Park. And in the cedar-panelled smoking room in his elegant stately home, Pollok House, the foundations were laid for a Scottish trust to protect the nation’s heritage.
In July 1931, a group of distinguished gentlemen joined Sir John for what would be the first general meeting of the new National Trust for Scotland for Places of Historic Interest or National Beauty, Ltd.
“The National Trust for Scotland serves the nation as a cabinet into which it can put some of its valuable things, where they will be perfectly safe for all time, and where they are open to be seen and enjoyed by everyone,” Sir John later declared.
To show his commitment, he handed the Trust its first property, Crookston Castle. Built by the Stewarts of Darnley around 1400, it has links to Lord Darnley, second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, and is the second oldest building in Glasgow.
The new Trust was, however, tiny compared to its English counterpart, with just 28 annual members, six life members and a balance of £100, compared to more than £9,000 annual revenue boasted by the English trust.
And by 1932 it had spent £700 – almost half of its first legacy – on the purchase of the Palace of Culross in Fife, a location that would go on to become globally recognised due to its appearance in the television drama, Outlander.
But the Trust had captured the imagination of the public. With finances boosted by donations and legacies, it would not be long before the Trust was in the market for some of Scotland’s most iconic sites – including the battlefield site at Bannockburn, under threat from development until it stepped in.
It was not the only site targeted for development. Concern had been growing across Scotland over the construction of roads, the rise of new industries, large housing estates and growing tourism in rural areas, all of which threatened to engulf precious sites – including Glen Coe, where hotels and tea shops had sprung up. When a 70sq mile estate in the glen was bought by two Bournemouth-based brothers in April 1935, fears grew it would be broken into lots, developed for tourism and lost to the nation. In a surprise move, however, within months it was again available for auction – paving the way for the Trust, with financial support from the Scottish Mountaineering Club, to step in.
The aftermath of the Second World War saw the Trust take over a wide range of properties including Culzean Castle – a gift to the Trust from the Marquess of Ailsa – and its first royal property, Falkland Palace. Five years later the archipelago of St Kilda – now the UK’S only dual Unesco World Heritage Site – came under its care and protection.
It has added to the precious places in its care in every decade since it began, ranging from Craigievar Castle – said to be the inspiration for Walt Disney’s Cinderella Castle – rugged natural landscapes such as St Abb’s Head, and Robert Smail’s Printing Works in Innerleithen, the oldest working commercial letterpress printers in the UK.
Also, in 2017, Mar Lodge Estate was designated Scotland’s newest and largest National Nature Reserve, which, along with Glencoe National Nature Reserve joined the other six in its care.
Along the way there have been ups, downs, disagreements and, in 2005, the country’s largest rat problem.
The island of Canna – just 4.5 miles long – had been invaded by more than 10,000 brown rats which, as well as causing problems for residents, were eating the eggs of seabird and their young.
In the most ambitious plan of its kind ever seen in the UK, a pest control force was brought from New Zealand to lay more than 4,300 traps and around 150 Canna wood mice were transported to Edinburgh for safekeeping.
Branded a success in 2008, last year it emerged that puffin numbers that were in freefall prior to the rat clearance had doubled, with almost 2,000 birds counted on the island.
The £500,000 rat-trap operation was overtaken in 2009 when the Trust sunk into a financial crisis leading to redundancies and the controversial closure of 10 properties.
The furore led to an independent review which warned it was “not sustainable if it continued to operate as at present”.
Major reforms included a massive reduction in the Trust’s governance structure, however, the impact of the pandemic would present an even bigger challenge to its armies of volunteers and staff, doing everything from guiding visitors to thatching cottages and building footpaths.
Having battled through, the Trust is now working towards a new 10-year strategy. Phil Long, chief executive of the charity since July last year, says: “Developing this new strategy requires us to ask some searching questions about how we have performed in delivering our charitable purposes to date and how we might do better in future.
“While the impacts have been severe on the Trust, we can also see opportunities as we look forward to our centenary in 2031. We’re going to consider what the Trust needs to be and do in order to remain relevant and resilient, building upon our timeless founding charitable purpose.
“Sir John’s ‘cabinet’ was never intended to be locked,” he adds.
“It is our responsibility to ensure that as many people as possible enjoy our places and the connected human stories of Scotland and its people – wherever from – to help us understand and learn from the past.”