料 PLACE

NPPP 2022 Factsheet:

LAND­SCAPE & CUL­TUR­AL HERITAGE

Land­scape is the shape and diversity to our sur­round­ings, the product of thou­sands of years of inter­ac­tion between man and nature, encom­passing the phys­ic­al and cul­tur­al envir­on­ment. Land­scape is import­ant, because it links cul­ture to nature, and the past to the present.

At 4,528 square kilo­met­ers, and com­pris­ing 6% of Scotland’s land area, the Park is amongst the largest pro­tec­ted land­scape in the UK.

Sum­mary of the spe­cial qual­it­ies of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park

Gen­er­al qual­it­ies include:

• Mag­ni­fi­cent moun­tains tower­ing over moor­land, forest and strath.
• Vast­ness of space, scale and height.
• Strong jux­ta­pos­i­tion of con­trast­ing landscapes.
• A land­scape of lay­ers, from inhab­ited strath to remote, unin­hab­ited upland.
• ‘The har­mony of com­plic­ated curves’.
• Land­scapes both cul­tur­al and natural.

More defined qualities:

The Moun­tains and Plateaux

• The uni­fy­ing pres­ence of the cent­ral mountains.
• An impos­ing mas­sif of strong dra­mat­ic char­ac­ter (image below: Braeriach)
• The unique plat­eaux of vast scale, dis­tinct­ive land­forms and exposed, boulder strewn high ground.
• The sur­round­ing hills.
• The drama of deep corries.
• Excep­tion­al gla­cial land­forms and snowscapes.

Trees, Woods and Forests

• Dark and ven­er­able pine forest (image below mid-ground tree cover).
• Light and airy birch woods (image below: fore­ground trees).
• Park­land and policy woodlands.
• Long asso­ci­ation with forestry.

Moor­lands

• Extens­ive moor­land, link­ing the farm­land, wood­land and the high tops.
• A patch­work of muirburn.

Wild­life and Nature

• Dom­in­ance of nat­ur­al landforms.
• Extens­ive tracts of nat­ur­al vegetation.
• Asso­ci­ation with icon­ic animals.
• Wild land.
• Wild­ness.

Glens and Straths

• Steep glens and high passes.
• Broad, farmed straths.
• Renowned rivers.
• Beau­ti­ful lochs.

Visu­al and Sens­ory Qualities

• Lay­ers of reced­ing ridge lines.
• Grand pan­or­a­mas and framed views.
• A land­scape of many colours
• Dark skies.
• Attract­ive and con­trast­ing textures.
• The dom­in­ance of nat­ur­al sounds.

Cul­ture and History

• Dis­tinct­ive planned towns (Grant­own; right)
• Ver­nacu­lar stone buildings.
• Dra­mat­ic, his­tor­ic­al routes
• The wist­ful­ness of aban­doned settlements.
• Focal cul­tur­al land­marks of castles, dis­til­ler­ies and bridges.
• The Roy­al connection.

Recre­ation

• A land­scape of opportunities.
• Spir­itu­al­ity.

Nation­al Scen­ic Areas

Two Nation­al Scen­ic Areas (NSAs), the Cairngorm Moun­tains NSA and Deeside and Loch­nagar NSA, are loc­ated entirely with­in the Park bound­ary, cov­er­ing an area of around 1,072 square kilo­metres, which equates to just under 25% of the land area of the Park.

Wild­ness and Wild Land Areas

Wild­ness is a qual­ity exper­i­enced by people when vis­it­ing places of a cer­tain char­ac­ter. Wild­ness is object­ively con­sidered through four phys­ic­al attrib­utes being present namely;

• per­ceived nat­ur­al­ness of the land cover;
• rug­ged­ness of the terrain;
• remote­ness from pub­lic roads, fer­ries or rail­way sta­tions and the vis­ible lack of build­ings, roads, pylons,
• and oth­er mod­ern artifacts.

Wild Land Areas, which rep­res­ent the most extens­ive areas of high wild­ness in Scot­land. Around 2,100 km², or 46%, of the Park has been iden­ti­fied as a Wild Land Area.

His­tor­ic landscape

The land­scape seen today is the res­ult of a com­plex inter­play of cli­mate, geo­logy, geo­mor­pho­logy, soil devel­op­ment, veget­a­tion suc­ces­sion and herb­i­vore impacts, along with human ele­ments linked to set­tle­ment, trans­port, farm­ing and forestry. The map below iden­ti­fies where his­tor­ic­al archae­olo­gic­al records, as held by the Roy­al Com­mis­sion on the Ancient and His­tor­ic­al Monu­ments of Scot­land and oth­ers, occur in the Park. These provide an indic­a­tion of where human activ­ity has occurred in the past.

• x110 Sched­uled Monuments
• x11 Gar­dens and designed landscapes
• x753 Lis­ted Buildings
• x2 Invent­ory of His­tor­ic Battlefields
• x5 Planned Towns: Bal­later, Blair Atholl, Tomin­toul, Grant­own-on-Spey and Kingussie

Con­ser­va­tion Areas

Parts of the planned towns of Bal­later, Grant­own-on-Spey and Blair Atholl have been des­ig­nated as Con­ser­va­tion Areas, which are pro­tec­ted under the Plan­ning (Lis­ted Build­ings and Con­ser­va­tion Areas) (Scot­land) Act 1997. The Park also has a fur­ther two Con­ser­va­tion Areas with­in its bound­ary at Brae­mar and Inverey.

Build­ings at Risk

The Build­ings at Risk Register (BARR) for Scot­land high­lights prop­er­ties of archi­tec­tur­al or his­tor­ic mer­it through­out the coun­try that are con­sidered to be at risk or under threat. To be at risk, a build­ing does not neces­sar­ily need to be in poor con­di­tion, it may simply be stand­ing empty with no clear future use. Many build­ings at risk are in this lat­ter cat­egory. From the latest avail­able data, 31 build­ings were recor­ded as being at risk in the Park.

Lin­guist­ic Heritage

Loc­ated near the cen­ter of Scot­land, and owing to the restrict­ive nature of its moun­tain­ous ter­rain, the Cairngorms Nation­al Park occu­pies a pos­i­tion where many of the lin­guist­ic and cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences found in Scot­land inter­sect. The lan­guage used in place names in the Park often has his­tor­ic­al mean­ing that describes the land­scape, place, wild­life or activ­it­ies that could or are still found there.

Spoken Lan­guages

Gael­ic, which is recor­ded to be the lan­guage was spoken by a very small pro­por­tion of the pop­u­la­tion (around 2.2% in the 2011 Census, down from around 3.1% in 2001 Census) in the Park, it is a vis­ible and insep­ar­able part of the iden­tity of the area, as it con­tin­ues to dom­in­ate the names of places, both built and natural.

Scots, (Dor­ic), is stronger in the east where the influ­ence of the low­lands is greatest. The lan­guage has also seen a fall in use, with around 29.3% (5,400 people) of the Nation­al Park’s pop­u­la­tion claim­ing to be able to speak it in the 2011 Census.

Fur­ther Information

Cairgnroms Land­scapes and Scenery:
https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​d​i​s​c​o​v​e​r​-​e​x​p​l​o​r​e​/​l​a​n​d​s​c​a​p​e​s​-​s​c​e​nery/

Cairngorms Land­scape Toolkit:
https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​p​l​a​n​n​i​n​g​-​d​e​v​e​l​o​p​m​e​n​t​/​l​a​n​d​s​c​a​p​e​-​t​o​o​lkit/

Spe­cial Land­scape Qualities
https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​c​a​r​i​n​g​-​f​u​t​u​r​e​/​c​a​i​r​n​g​o​r​m​s​-​l​a​n​d​s​c​a​p​e​s​/​c​a​i​r​n​g​o​r​m​s​-​s​p​e​c​i​a​l​-​l​a​n​d​s​c​a​p​e​-​q​u​a​l​i​ties/