Mystery gift to Knoydart fund puts estate in settlers' hands

THE SETTLERS of the Knoydart peninsula have at last taken control of their wild Highland home, thanks to their own dogged resolve and an exotic alliance of a former Olympic athlete, a West End impresario and a mystery benefactor who chipped in pounds 100,000 at the last gasp.

A community-led buyout of the 7,200-acre Knoydart estate was confirmed yesterday, bringing to an end decades of tension between residents and mainly absentee lairds.

The Knoydart Foundation, representing the 70 residents and wild land charities, clinched the pounds 750,000 deal after five months of negotiations with receivers trying to recoup debts of pounds 1.4m left by the last private owners - a company controlled by the discredited English businessman Stephen Hinchliffe.

Bernie Evemy, the former Kent plumber who chairs the community association, was jubilant. "We in Knoydart have created for ourselves a new chieftain, neither man nor woman," he said. "The body of that chieftain is the people. The people of Knoydart are free from the threat of injustice, which was once so brutally inflicted by its owners during the Clearances of 1853 and at the time of the Land Raiders in 1948."

History weighs heavy on Knoydart, a mountainous finger of land between the lochs of Nevis (Heaven) and Hourn (Hell) in north-west Scotland. Inverie, where most of the people live, can be reached only by boat from Mallaig or a two-day trek over the aptly named Rough Bounds.

Except for a handful of children, all the people on Knoydart are incomers, making a living from tourists or the seashore. The families of the Land Raiders - the Seven Men of Knoydart taken to court by the Nazi sympathiser Lord Brocket, who was then their laird, after they claimed a few acres of homeland on return from war service - have long departed.

Yesterday was hailed as the completion of the Raiders' unfinished business. Charlie King, chairman of the foundation, said: "It has taken a long time but we have finally concluded the work started by these pioneers in 1948."

The purchase money has come from varied sources: pounds 250,000 from the John Muir Trust, dedicated to preserving wild land and its fragile communities; pounds 200,000 from the trust set up by the former Olympic athlete Chris Brasher with similar aims; pounds 75,000 from Sir Cameron Mackintosh, promotor of Les Miserables and Martin Guerre; and pounds 125,000 from public agencies. The balance has come from a public appeal, including a late anonymous donation of pounds 100,000, which Mr Brasher said was the "vital factor" in concluding the deal.

Knoydart has become a symbol of the need for land reform in Scotland and legislation is promised early in the new Scottish Parliament. Mr Brasher appealed to ministers to make sure there was money available for communities just as deserving but less well known.

Sir Cameron's continued involvement in the buyout was something of a surprise. Six weeks ago he was about to buy the estate and lease it back to residents for pounds 1 a year plus a bottle of malt whisky. But the deal foundered over his refusal to grant a "right to buy" at a future date. Sir Cameron owns the adjoining North Morar estate and the settlers preferred "a good neighbour to a laird".

The foundation stressed the purchase was just the first round in the battle to save the estate and appealed for pounds 300,000 for much-needed investment. Unlike other buyouts in the Highlands, Knoydart is not a crofting community but a run-down Victorian sporting estate and reformers and lairds alike will be keeping a close eye on the foundation's stewardship.