Sporting Estates Quotes

“The Hotel dining-room, like most of the others I was to find in the Highlands, had its walls covered with pictures of all sorts of wild game, living or in the various postures of death that are produced by sport. Between these pictures the walls were alert with the stuffed heads of deer, furnished with antlers of every degree of magnificence. A friend of mine has a theory that these pictures of dying birds and wounded beasts are intended to whet the diner's appetite, and perhaps they did in the more lusty age of Victoria; but I found they had the opposite effect on me, and had to keep my eyes from straying too often to them. In one particular hotel this idea was carried out with such thoroughness that the walls of its dining room looked like a shambles, they presented such an overwhelming array of bleeding birds, beasts and fishes. To find these abominations on the walls of Highland hotels, among a people of such delicacy in other things, is peculiarly revolting, and rubs in with superfluous force that this is a land whose main contemporary industry is the shooting down of wild creatures; not production of any kind but wholesale destruction. This state of things is not the fault of the Highlanders, but of the people who have bought their country and come to it chiefly to kill various forms of life.”
― Edwin Muir, Scottish Journey

“Badenoch encapsulates the dichotomy of the sporting estate. Rich southern incomers provided much-needed income and jobs, a new economic lifeline in difficult times, while at the same time riding roughshod over the last remnants of the traditional farming economy to suit their own interests - another blow to a way of life that had survived and evolved over countless generations.”
― David Taylor, 'The People Are Not There': The Transformation of Badenoch 1800 - 1863

“...while the troubles sweeping Europe and southern Britain comprised liberal and radical elements protesting against powerful elites to secure better rights, in Badenoch it was the opposite - a subtle exercise of power by a small but influential outsider elite seeking to sweep aside the long-established rights of the lower orders, whose mere presence disrupted their leisure pursuits. There was, of course, a measure of protest, but the scattered and impoverished nature of local communities rendered them powerless. Land-owners knew well enough which side their bread was buttered on - a trend that became increasingly evident over the next two decades.”
― David Taylor, 'The People Are Not There': The Transformation of Badenoch 1800 - 1863

“I would start at 6 a.m. on a six mile walk and a piece of dry oat cake was nearly always eaten before we reached the place selected to commence the day's shooting. The spying, stalking,and chasing would continue until dark. When there was a kill, or chase, we would not get back to the huts before ten or twelve at night, worn out, and so hungry as to be ready to eat anything. After attending to the dogs I had to walk home, a distance of two miles [sometimes not getting to bed till 2:00 a.m.], and next morning at 6 a.m. would be off again with a fresh gentleman.”
― William Collie

“The footprint of Culardoch Shieling measures 47 square metres and the interior is lined with Sitka. In contrast to traditional shieling huts, it provides accommodation for eating only. From within, the windows mimicking Ronchamp, are placed, not as Corbusier intended, to strategically introduce a deliberate interplay of light and shadow, but rather, to frame specific viewpoints of the Beinn Avon massif. Culardoch Shieling presents us with a clever, romanticised view of what the shieling can be in 21st century Scotland. Unfortunately, it is not a structure that I find convincing. The fusion of modernist borrowings and Swiss-chalet vernacular aside, it is the conceptual basis for this 'shieling' that I find troubling. Obviously the need for shieling huts to provide shelter for those tending the dairy herd is anachronistic. However, the heritage that Culardoch Shieling pays homage to is clearly straight from a 19th century shooting textbook. It's a lunch hut. A 21st century folly, which was never intended for overnight stay, nor for sustained periods of habitation. In Glen Gairn the shieling way of life has become shieling lifestyle.”
― Charles Fletcher, Reforesting Scotland 72: Autumn/Winter 2025