‘Ardtornish is an enchanting place. There are different kinds of silence: this is the silence of prehistory,” the novelist Justin Cartwright once wrote. For centuries visitors to the settlement on the Morvern peninsula would have arrived by boat, sailing up the Sound of Mull until they reached the bay of Loch Aline and saw the ruined castle through the top of the oaks, beach and lime.
The journey is still arduous. If you are coming from London, it’s easiest to take the night train from Euston to Fort William, then in the morning you catch the Corran Ferry across Loch Linnhe and drive down the single-track coast road, before meandering through Glen Geal towards the village of Lochaline.
Ardtornish was once the home of the first Lord of the Isles, Somerled, who took control of the islands and Morvern peninsula in the mid-12th century. Now the estate is run by Hugh Raven and his wife Jane. It’s vast, stretching along 20 miles of coastline, and is dominated by the tower of Kinlochaline Castle and Ardtornish House, a late Victorian lodge, once described as “an Inverness villa with elephantitis”. There are sea and freshwater lochs, glens, beaches, bothies and the River Aline running through swathes of heather. There are 200 varieties of rhododendron and daffodils, and primula line the burns in the spring.
At the entrance is a list of wildlife sightings, including golden eagles and pearl-bordered fritillaries, and this gives you the first clue that you are about to enter one of Scotland’s most interesting nature regeneration programmes.
Raven has always been passionate about nature. He has been an environmental grant-maker and a director of Crown Estate Scotland, and he chairs the Environmental Funders Network, the Highlands & Islands Environment Foundation and the Open Seas Trust. His grandfather, Owen Hugh Smith, bought the estate in 1930, having fallen in love with its garden. He was also keen on hunting, shooting and fishing.
Advertisement
Raven’s mother, Faith, inherited Ardtornish with her husband, the academic John Raven. But their five children were aware that it needed to change. Hugh’s brother Andrew (obituary), another passionate conservationist, ran the estate until he died of cancer in 2005 at the age of 46. Hugh and Jane continued his work while their two children commuted by ferry to school on Mull.
They started by creating a hydroelectric system in the hills of the estate, which rises from sea level to 2,430ft, before beginning to re-establish the woodlands. They have redecorated several stone cottages to rent out and Jane co-founded the Whitehouse Restaurant in Lochaline, which uses local produce. Specialities include Lochaline langoustines and Morvern stag’s liver with Tobermory whisky.
But it is the conservation work that is most impressive. “I don’t use the term rewilding because some people don’t like it and we’re doing it all gradually,” Raven explains. “We still continue farming. Estates have always multi-tasked. It has to be run as a business but we also urgently need to restore the ecology of the area, which has declined massively.”
In the 19th century there were huge numbers of livestock — 6,000 sheep and 300 to 400 brace of grouse — but now there are a handful of grouse and raptors. “The ecological productivity has gone through the floor,” Raven says. Grazing herbivores and exporting livestock have been the cause. “We had black-faced sheep and originally native-breed cattle, and until the 1950s we had a dairy, then we moved over to continental cattle.” Like many Scottish estates they also had increasing numbers of red deer. “People thought that deer stalking would be more economic.”
Raven doesn’t even like stalking. “I don’t enjoy handling a rifle, but that became the dominant model for estates. For 150 years we had a stalker.” Now they are gradually culling the deer. “We need to reduce their impact — but it’s controversial.”
Advertisement
What about introducing wolves and lynx, as has been done in some estates across Europe? “I don’t think Britain is ready for the reintroduction of wolves. It’s unlikely these creatures will survive as there will be a lot of people who are against them.” Lynx, he says, would have more of a chance.
Beavers have already been introduced across swathes of Scotland, with a mixed reception for their ingenious dams. “They are a hugely important addition to Scottish ecology,” Raven says.
He has no plans to introduce them on his estate but wouldn’t mind if they arrived eventually. “They are heading this way. There is also some guerrilla reintroduction that I know about.” Instead, he introduced 19 red squirrels into his woods. “We have no records of red squirrels historically but humans love them so there is no controversy, and they are in jeopardy in Britain because of grey squirrels.”
They are also determined to reintroduce the native wood ant. “There are 18 species of ant in the UK. They distribute wildflower seeds, are good for drainage and provide food for birds.”
Birds are another sensitive issue. “Many [populations] have declined since I was a child, most tragically nesting seabirds due to the reintroduction of North American mink in the 1970s. The Sound of Mull had at one time the largest breeding colony of common tern. There are few but we have got the mink population down and the pine marten and otter populations are increasing, and they help keep mink away. But the black-throated divers have declined; the golden eagles are just hanging on. We have historically had three breeding pairs but they rarely raise a chick. The white-tailed eagles are numerous.
Advertisement
“It was a real alarm bell when reports we commissioned a decade ago said our habitats were declining.” Raven remembers going on a seven-hour walk with a friend across the estate. “We saw only four species of bird: a corvid, a gull and an eagle briefly. It was utterly dismal.”
They hope the money they make out of hydroelectricity and the cottage lets will sustain their projects, along with grant schemes and charitable joint endeavours. Raven thinks this is the only way forward. “Across Scotland there are many advocates of rewilding. Anders and Anne Holch Povlsen, the largest landowners with 200,000 acres, are investing heavily in restoration. Paul Lister, who owns Alladale, has ambitious plans for wolf, bear and lynx.”
But what of the millions of Scots without vast estates — how do they feel about rewilding? “Across Scotland rewilding is very popular, there is strong consent to improve the ecology of the uplands.”
More controversial, he says, are the “green lairds” buying up land, often to use it for carbon offsetting purposes. “They plant trees but they don’t do much to help local communities, and hike up the price of land.”
Rewilding, Raven says, isn’t about letting the entire country return to a prehistoric age and importing all our food. “People say how can we feed ourselves if everyone rewilds? There will be a few large landholdings rewilding in each county but most land will still be used to produce food and fibre. If we get 5 or 10 per cent of land cover of this kind of habitat restoration it will make a huge difference to the nature conservation status of this island and that will benefit everyone: flora, fauna . . . and ants, of course.”
