Search the Site:

Post Clearances - Land Issues Today
Land Issues


1948
The Knoydart area was originally cleared in 1853; ninety-five years later, seven men staked out claims on the Knoydart property, saying it was their right to stake out crofts on land that was being purposely left to go to waste. In the ensuing months, the 7 men gained the support of the populace, mostly due to the pro-Nazi philosophies of the then Knoydart laird, but a Court ruling eventually forcibly evicted the men. (find out more .)

1976
Crofters are legally allowed, for the first time, to purchase their own croft farms.

1993
The 130 tenant residents of Assynt raise £130,000 and, with the assistance of various grants and loans, buy their 21,000 acre homeland when it goes up for sale by the landowner. The Assynt Crofters Trust Ltd is established to oversee the land. A spokesman for the Trust states: "On the 1st February 1993 we became the first crofting communities to take complete control of our land. Our success means that we have put an end to the stranglehold of absentee landlords on the Crofting communities of North Assynt and set in motion an irresistible change in the land tenure system throughout the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.".

1997
The residents of the Isle of Eigg raise over $2.4 million to buy their island from the landowner. Former laird Keith Schellenberg, who sold Eigg several years earlier, had called the island residents "drunken, ungrateful, dangerous and barmy chancers" and threatened them with eviction.


Eigg Today
Zoom in

Who Owns
Scotland
Today? .



Click on either logo to learn more about these organisations.



Heritage Trust Logo

Find out more about The Gigha Heritage Trust.


1998 (May)
From The Scotsman: The manager of the troubled Knoydart Estate has been sacked by his new landlords after he raised concerns over their takeover. Ian Robertson learned of the decision, which takes immediate effect, in a letter from John Turville, the recently-appointed managing director of Knoydart Peninsula Ltd (KPL), the company which owns the 17,000-acre estate. He has been told his actions amount to gross misconduct and ordered to clear his possessions from the estate-owned Farm Bothy at Inverie and vacate the house by 1 June.

1999 (March)
With assistance ranging from the John Muir Trust to theatre impresario Cameron Mackintosh, locals of the 17,000+ acre Knoydart Estate purchase their lands. The newly-founded Knoydart Foundation pledges to "procure and manage for the benefit of the public the Knoydart Estate as an area of employment and settlement on the Knoydart Peninsula."



2000 (March)
John MacLeod, the 29th MacLeod clan chief, puts the Black Cuillin mountains on Skye up for sale for £10 million. Local residents protest, sparking a debate about who actually owns the land and their rights to sell it.

2002
The islanders of Gigha took the historical step of buying their island (Latha Ghiogha - a new dawn), ensuring that for all time Gigha would be held in trust for the benefit of all. To do this they were assisted by the Scottish Land Fund of the National Lottery's New Opportunities Fund and Highlands & Islands Enterprise.