Scottish Affairs, Sporting Estates and the Aristocracy

Abstract

The Highland Sporting Estate looms large in the analysis of both 19th and 20th century debates about landownership (Cameron 1991; Grant 1989; Hunter 1974, 1976, 1995; Lister-Kaye 1994; Smout 1993). The idea of the sporting estate in social and economic terms as a place in which private indulgence continues to take precedence over social and economic development in certain areas is a key reason why such an issue continues to stir the public consciousness everytime an estate falls onto the open market. Whilst other types of holdings such as working farms may be placed on the land market with as much regularity as sporting estates, no other holding attracts land prices which bear so little relationship to the productive capacity of the land. The aims of this paper are as follows: • One of the key traditional defences of private landownership in Scotland has been that the private sporting estate, and the different forms of blood sport associated with such, makes a significant contribution to the economic development of local communities/This paper questions the precise nature and extent of this economic contribution by way of comparing the economics of shooting with the more profitable forms of recreation in the Highlands. • Sport and leisure are often forgotten aspects of Scottish social and political affairs. While this paper specifically connects with contemporary debates about land reform in Scotland, it is also a reminder that while our leading social and political commentators should not provide sport and leisure with an over-determin ed degree of