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Historic and cultural heritage - Engagement version

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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Top­ic: His­tor­ic and cul­tur­al her­it­age Engage­ment ver­sion June 2024

Require­ments addressed in this sec­tion Table 1 Inform­a­tion required by the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 1997, as amended, regard­ing the issue addressed in this section.

Sec­tionRequire­ment
Sec­tion 15(5)The prin­cip­al phys­ic­al, cul­tur­al, eco­nom­ic, social, built her­it­age and envir­on­ment­al char­ac­ter­ist­ics of the district.

Links to evidence

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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Sum­mary of evid­ence Policy con­text Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000) The Nation­al Park has four dis­tinct aims as set out in The Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000). The first aim is ​‘to con­serve and enhance the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the area’. The aims are all to be pur­sued col­lect­ively. How­ever, if there is con­flict between the first aim and any of the oth­ers, great­er weight is giv­en to the first aim (as set out in Sec­tion 9(6) of the 2000 Act).

Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 recog­nises Scotland’s rich her­it­age, cul­ture and out­stand­ing envir­on­ment as nation­al assets which sup­port our eco­nomy, iden­tity, health and wellbeing.

The iden­ti­fic­a­tion and pro­tec­tion of nation­ally import­ant land­scape assets and spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies are provided in Policy 4 Nat­ur­al Places with the intent to pro­tect, restore and enhance land­scapes and to ensure they are man­aged in a sus­tain­able way. The pro­tec­tion Policy 4 affords applies to both Nation­al Parks and the Nation­al Scen­ic Areas (Nation­al Scen­ic Areas) that sit with­in them.

Policy 4 c) as two stages of the policy test for man­aging change from devel­op­ment pro­pos­als and has a high level of pro­tec­tion, where devel­op­ment will only be sup­por­ted where:

  • The object­ives of des­ig­na­tion and the over­all integ­rity of the areas will not be com­prom­ised: or

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  • Any sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects on the qual­it­ies for which the area has been des­ig­nated are clearly out­weighed by social, envir­on­ment­al or eco­nom­ic bene­fits of nation­al importance.

There are cur­rently six spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies which have been iden­ti­fied in rela­tion to the cul­ture and his­tory of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park (see page 10).

Policy 7 His­tor­ic assets and places requires Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plans, includ­ing through spa­tial strategies, to sup­port the sus­tain­able man­age­ment of the his­tor­ic envir­on­ment. They should Identi­fy, pro­tect and enhance val­ued his­tor­ic assets and places. Pro­tec­tion and man­age­ment include both des­ig­nated (Lis­ted Build­ings, Sched­uled Ancient Monu­ments, His­tor­ic Gar­dens and Designed Land­scapes, His­tor­ic Bat­tle­fields, Build­ings at Risk) and non-des­ig­nated assets. For the lat­ter this includes, the asset, place and / or setting.

Policy 31 Cul­ture and cre­ativ­ity encour­ages, pro­motes and facil­it­ates devel­op­ment which reflects the diverse cul­ture and cre­ativ­ity of the Nation­al Park and sup­ports asso­ci­ated indus­tries to this. The devel­op­ment plan should recog­nise and sup­port oppor­tun­it­ies for jobs, invest­ment in the cre­at­ive sec­tor, cul­ture, her­it­age and the arts, with­in the Nation­al Park.

The Nation­al Park has a strong cul­tur­al iden­tity drawn from the appre­ci­ation of its land­scapes and his­tory. In this con­text devel­op­ment pro­pos­als are encour­aged which draw upon this in the tem­por­ary use of vacant spaces and prop­er­ties for cre­at­ive work­spaces and the deliv­ery of pub­lic art. Policy 31 aims to ensure the reten­tion of exist­ing arts or cul­tur­al ven­ues where sus­tain­able. Pro­posed new devel­op­ment in the vicin­ity of exist­ing ven­ues should not impede the full use of these ven­ues and resources.

Policy 14 Design, Qual­ity and Places requires that Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plans be place-based and under­pinned by the six qual­it­ies of suc­cess­ful places. This policy places expect­a­tions of design, qual­ity and place (tak­ing account of the loc­al con­text, char­ac­ter­ist­ics and con­nectiv­ity of the areas), on devel­op­ment plan policy. This would draw on Inform­a­tion gathered through approaches includ­ing Place Stand­ard assess­ments and com­munity engage­ment for example through the Com­munity Action Plans.

Policy 30 Tour­ism requires the recov­ery, growth and long-term resi­li­ence of the tour­ism sec­tor, with the spa­tial strategy Identi­fy­ing suit­able loc­a­tions reflect­ing oppor­tun­it­ies for

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tour­ism devel­op­ment. Of rel­ev­ance, the strategy should also Identi­fy areas of pres­sure where exist­ing tour­ism pro­vi­sion is hav­ing adverse impacts on the envir­on­ment or the qual­ity of life and health and well­being of loc­al com­munit­ies, and where fur­ther devel­op­ment Is not appropriate.

Policy 31 Cul­ture and cre­ativ­ity requires recog­ni­tion and sup­port of oppor­tun­it­ies for jobs and Invest­ment In the cre­at­ive sec­tor, cul­ture, her­it­age and the arts.

Our Past Our Future Our Past our Future is Scotland’s Nation­al Strategy for the His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment for the 5‑year peri­od 2023 – 2028.

The his­tor­ic envir­on­ment is con­sidered a nation­al asset which will help to enable loc­al places to thrive and con­trib­ute to the trans­ition to net zero. The approach sets out 3 pri­or­it­ies tar­get­ing activ­ity to where the his­tor­ic envir­on­ment can deliv­er most bene­fit to the people of Scotland:

  • Pri­or­ity 1 Deliv­er­ing the trans­ition to net zero
  • Pri­or­ity 2 Empower­ing resi­li­ent and inclus­ive com­munit­ies and places
  • Pri­or­ity 3 build­ing a well­being economy

From these pri­or­it­ies a series of 9 out­comes have been iden­ti­fied to focus deliv­ery, using an inclus­ive and trans­par­ent approach enga­ging stake­hold­ers. In par­tic­u­lar for the next Devel­op­ment Plan it is con­sidered that Out­comes to empower loc­al com­munit­ies and enhance the his­tor­ic envir­on­ment, are espe­cially rel­ev­ant to the Nation­al Park giv­en the strong cor­rel­a­tion between the spa­tial arrange­ment of com­munit­ies and his­tor­ic assets along the straths and glens. The his­tor­ic envir­on­ment plays a key role in both the cre­ation of cul­tur­al iden­tity and dis­tinct­ive­ness for the com­munit­ies of place and interest which in turn are reflec­ted in a num­ber of Spe­cial Land­scape Qual­it­ies across the Nation­al Park. A num­ber of Out­comes across the 3 pri­or­it­ies are of par­tic­u­lar rel­ev­ance at this stage of evid­ence gath­er­ing for the next devel­op­ment plan:

  • Organ­iz­a­tions that care for the his­tor­ic envir­on­ment have the right skills and are more resi­li­ent both socially and climatically.
  • Com­munit­ies have more oppor­tun­it­ies to par­ti­cip­ate in decision-mak­ing about the his­tor­ic environment.
  • The his­tor­ic envir­on­ment makes a respons­ible con­tri­bu­tion to Scotland’s economy.
  • Increased engage­ment with the his­tor­ic envir­on­ment, with a focus on activ­it­ies that enhance well-being.

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The import­ance of the con­tri­bu­tion that the main­ten­ance, reuse and adapt­a­tion of our his­tor­ic envir­on­ment can make in pre­vent­ing waste and redu­cing car­bon emis­sions is recog­nised under the trans­ition to net zero priority.

Point­ing the Way to the Future His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment Scotland’s cli­mate and nature crisis state­ment recog­nises that the his­tor­ic envir­on­ment is part of a just trans­ition to net zero. It con­trib­utes to our places, com­munit­ies and iden­tit­ies and the reuse of his­tor­ic assets is cent­ral to sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment Scot­land there­fore encour­age the hol­ist­ic con­sid­er­a­tion of the role that the resource plays in deliv­er­ing mul­tiple bene­fits across numer­ous policy areas.

Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 The first aim of the Nation­al Park is to ​‘to con­serve and enhance the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the area’ and there­fore the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan will have to care­fully con­sider its poten­tial effects on these assets. This is reflec­ted in the fol­low­ing Part­ner­ship Plan objectives:

  • B8. Encour­age great­er use of Gael­ic in the Nation­al Park.
  • C10. Safe­guard and pro­mote the Nation­al Park’s cul­tur­al her­it­age and provide oppor­tun­it­ies for every­one to exper­i­ence and learn about the Nation­al Park’s out­stand­ing his­tor­ic envir­on­ment, his­tory and culture.

In addi­tion, the aim and object­ives are sup­por­ted by a num­ber of policies, of which A4, B1, B4 and C5 are of par­tic­u­lar rel­ev­ance to this topic.

Policy A4 aims to con­serve and enhance the spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park, of which there are cur­rently six that have a par­tic­u­lar focus on the exper­i­ence of the cul­tur­al and his­tor­ic assets.

Policy B1 seeks to strengthen exist­ing busi­ness sec­tors, sup­ports diver­si­fic­a­tion and the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy and main­tains the num­ber of work­ers employed in the Nation­al Park. This has strong links through to Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 Policy 31 and sup­port­ing of deliv­ery if jobs in the cul­tur­al and cre­at­ive sec­tor (also links through to Tour­ism policy).

Policy B4 provides oppor­tun­it­ies for inspir­a­tion, learn­ing and under­stand­ing through enga­ging with people, with a par­tic­u­lar focus on a num­ber of aspects Includ­ing the cel­eb­ra­tion of Gael­ic cul­ture and language.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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Safe­guard­ing and pro­mot­ing the Nation­al Park’s cul­tur­al her­it­age is pre­dom­in­antly delivered through Policy C5, which aims to con­serve and enhance the cul­tur­al her­it­age. In turn this helps to cre­ate sense of place and iden­tity for com­munit­ies with­in the Nation­al Park, by a num­ber of meas­ures, includ­ing the pro­tec­tion and enhance­ment of archae­olo­gic­al sites, the built her­it­age and designed land­scapes, with the pro­mo­tion of oppor­tun­it­ies to enjoy and cel­eb­rate the cul­tur­al her­it­age of the Nation­al Park.

The Nation­al Park also has a sig­ni­fic­ant role to play in deliv­er­ing the policy ambi­tions of Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and is pur­su­ing a num­ber of ambi­tious pro­jects like Her­it­age Hori­zons: Cairngorms 2030. Across these pro­jects Her­it­age Hori­zons will bring about trans­form­a­tion­al change in the Cairngorms, bene­fit­ing people’s health and well­being, deliv­er­ing on pro­pos­als to tackle cli­mate change and enhan­cing nature across the Nation­al Park. Whilst all the pro­jects are rel­ev­ant to the appre­ci­ation of the land­scapes in the Nation­al Park, in par­tic­u­lar two pro­jects have dir­ect or sig­ni­fic­ant implications:

  • Land­scape and Communities
  • Com­munity arts and cul­ture programme

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan Under The Gael­ic Lan­guage (Scot­land) Act 2005 the Nation­al Park Author­ity has a duty to pre­pare a Gael­ic lan­guage plan. This is designed to ensure that the pub­lic sec­tor in Scot­land plays its part in cre­at­ing a sus­tain­able future for Gael­ic by rais­ing the status and pro­file of the lan­guage and cre­at­ing prac­tic­al oppor­tun­it­ies for its use.

The Park Authority’s cur­rent Gael­ic lan­guage plan was adop­ted in 2018. How­ever, in March 2024 a new plan was con­sul­ted on. At the time of writ­ing the responses to the con­sulta­tion are being con­sidered by the Author­ity and the final ver­sion of the plan is due to be adop­ted later in 2024.

The draft plan con­tains three stra­tegic priorities:

  • Increas­ing the use of Gaelic
  • Increas­ing the learn­ing of Gaelic
  • Pro­mot­ing a pos­it­ive image of Gaelic

Com­munity action plans There are cur­rently 18 com­munity action plans in place across the Nation­al Park. Whilst there is some vari­ation in con­tent and style, all the action plans included some level of com­munity engage­ment, through a sur­vey and / or work­shop days (‘Big Conversations’).

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Most of the Action Plans used the approach out­lined in the Place Stand­ard and the Nation­al Stand­ards for Com­munity Engage­ment to assist in involving the com­munity and shap­ing the action plan. This improved inclus­iv­ity and rep­res­ent­a­tion of views and helped to gen­er­ate a dia­logue about what is import­ant in their com­munity and what actions to take.

The major­ity of the action plans recog­nised the import­ance of the loc­al cul­tur­al her­it­age and town­scape char­ac­ter and val­ued them as such. Key factors that are rel­ev­ant to many of the com­munit­ies out­lined in the action plans are:

  • The loc­a­tion of the com­munit­ies with­in the moun­tain­ous set­ting and with­in the scen­ic Cairngorms Nation­al Park.
  • Long his­tory of set­tle­ment along straths and glens many set­tle­ments dated back to pre­his­tor­ic times.
  • Icon­ic cul­tur­al land­mark build­ings and struc­tures (includ­ing Blair Castle, old pack­horse bridge at Car­rbridge, Glen­buchat and Cor­garff Castles along Strath­don, Castle Roy and the Telford Bridges at Nethy Bridge, Dal­whin­nie Dis­til­lery and Brae­mar Castle).
  • Char­ac­ter­ful his­tor­ic centres of tra­di­tion­al stone-built houses, many from the Geor­gi­an and Vic­tori­an eras.
  • Sev­er­al planned set­tle­ments with strong grid char­ac­ter (includ­ing Bal­later and Grant­own on Spey).
  • Unusu­al his­tor­ic build­ings, fea­tures and struc­tures impart a strong dis­tinct­ive sense of place and iden­tity to set­tle­ments (Bal­later Old Rail­ways Sta­tion, Blair Atholl water­mill, St Andrews Church Brae­mar, the Old Pack­horse Bridge at Car­rbridge, the Piper’s Stone at Crom­dale, the YMCA build­ing at Grant­own on Spey, Strath­spey Steam Rail­way con­nec­tions to Grant­own on Spey, Thomas Telford Bridges at Nethy Bridge.
  • Strong links to and influ­ence of the clans and estates which sur­round and extend across the set­tle­ments (includ­ing Blair Atholl and Atholl Estates; Inver­cauld and Mar and Mar Lodge Estates at Brae­mar; Ben Alder Estate at Dal­whin­nie; Grant fam­ily con­nec­tions at Grant­own on Spey; Atholl Estates and Inver­cauld Estates at Mount Blair and Glen­shee; Clan MacPh­er­son at New­ton­more, and the estates of Can­dac­raig, Edinglassie, Allar­gue, Tor­nashean, Inver­arnan and Newe at Strath­don and long asso­ci­ations with the For­bes Family).
  • The pres­ence of many drover’s routes and his­tor­ic passes that provide access along straths and glens and through the adja­cent moun­tain­ous ter­rain (Wades Road over the Cor­rieyair­ack Pass near Lag­gan, and the cattle mar­ket and cattle driv­ing her­it­age which was the inspir­a­tion for the Cat­er­aen Trail near Mount Blair and Glenshee).

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  • Long tra­di­tion of annu­al high­land shows and games Annu­al High­land Games and Gath­er­ings (includ­ing the Lon­ach Gath­er­ing at Strath­don, Brae­mar gath­er­ing, Nethy Bridge High­land Games).
  • Inspir­ing cul­tur­al land­scape influ­en­cing poetry, songs, storey telling and art and lat­terly tele­vi­sion and film (includ­ing Ard­verikie House on Loch Lag­gan fea­tured in Mon­arch of the Glen).

Baseline of his­tor­ic and cul­tur­al mat­ters Nation­al Park Spe­cial Land­scape Qual­it­ies This sec­tion has strong links with and is largely dir­ec­ted by the inform­a­tion provided with­in the Land­scape sec­tion of the Evid­ence Report.

In 2010 work was con­duc­ted to identi­fy the Spe­cial Land­scape Qual­it­ies of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park land­scape, car­ried out by NatureScot and the Park Author­ity. The spe­cial qual­it­ies iden­ti­fied drawn on the dis­tinct land­scape and visu­al char­ac­ter of the Nation­al Park, but it is in par­tic­u­lar, how these qual­it­ies are exper­i­enced and val­ued by com­munit­ies with­in, and vis­it­ors to the Nation­al Park that make them import­ant to our under­stand­ing of the Nation­al Park’s place and identity.

As well as con­trib­ut­ing to oth­er spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies (e.g. Park­land and Policy Wood­land) spe­cif­ic cul­tur­al and his­tor­ic qual­it­ies are iden­ti­fied as:

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

Cairngorms 2030 – Land­scape and com­munit­ies pro­ject This pro­ject explores how com­munit­ies of place and interest per­ceive, exper­i­ence and value the land­scapes of the Nation­al Park, and estab­lishes these com­munity pref­er­ences for land­scape change. The cur­rent suite of spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies was devised through the applic­a­tion of a tech­nic­al meth­od­o­logy by pro­fes­sion­al con­sult­ants. Com­munity engage­ment on this work was not under­taken at that time. How­ever, this Pro­ject seeks to engage com­munit­ies dir­ectly into the devel­op­ment of an updated suite of spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies (that may draw on the exist­ing work) with a pro­gramme of engage­ment extend­ing over the next 5 years.

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This innov­at­ive work has sig­ni­fic­ant implic­a­tions for how the spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies are presen­ted going for­ward. Work has already began con­sid­er­ing how to spa­tially map some of the spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies, provid­ing a more rig­or­ous and trans­par­ent evid­ence base on which to draw from and in turn to inform the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. This think­ing will be developed through­out the next 5 years of the deliv­ery phase of this Project.

Draft spa­tially mapped spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies are being tested, which illus­trate where spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies are loc­ated, and where these qual­it­ies are par­tic­u­larly strongly rep­res­en­ted or ​‘enhanced’. The spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies include:

  • Designed his­tor­ic land­scape features
  • His­tor­ic rur­al land use and castles, with strong sense of the past
  • Her­it­age path and bridges

Cairngorms 2030 – Com­munity arts and cul­ture pro­gramme This pro­ject brings togeth­er the Nation­al Park’s cre­at­ive sec­tor to identi­fy and devel­op activ­it­ies that cre­ate a great­er con­nec­tion to our land­scapes and foster a sense of place. They will encour­age people to get involved in com­munity-based activ­ity and take action to reduce cli­mate change impacts in the Nation­al Park. This is an oppor­tun­ity for the Nation­al Park’s cre­at­ive com­munity to artic­u­late a vis­ion for arts and cul­ture in the Cairngorms, and to high­light the key role arts and cul­ture will play in achiev­ing trans­form­a­tion­al change. This work builds on the Cre­at­ive Cairngorms pro­ject ini­ti­ated by Grow­Biz in 2021, which helped estab­lish a col­lab­or­at­ive net­work for the cre­at­ive sec­tor in the Nation­al Park.

Nation­al Monu­ments Record of Scot­land — CAN­MORE The Nation­al Record for the His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment is a Scot­land-wide online cata­logue of archae­olo­gic­al and his­tor­ic­al sites span­ning a vari­ety of media. It is com­piled and man­aged by His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment Scot­land and con­tains inform­a­tion and col­lec­tions form all its sur­vey and record­ing work, as well as from a wide range of oth­er organ­isa­tions, com­munit­ies and indi­vidu­als who make avail­able a pro­por­tion of the record digit­ally via the internet:

  • Can­more, the data­base ele­ment (Fig­ure 1)
  • Pro­vi­sion of a map index to over 320,000 site loc­a­tions and a related archive of over 1.3m items.

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  • Past­Map, a map-based search facil­ity that brings togeth­er Can­more, Sched­uled Ancient Monu­ments, Lis­ted Build­ings and Designed Land­scapes and Gar­dens as well as loc­al His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment Records and Sites and Monu­ments Records: https://​past​map​.org​.uk
  • HLAMap, a map-based assess­ment of Scotland’s his­tor­ic landscape.
  • Air­Pho­toFind­er, a map-based search facil­ity for find­ing and dis­play­ing aer­i­al pho­to­graph coverage.

Can­more Records 1 2 — 10 11 – 30 31 – 50 51 – 87

Fig­ure 1 Dens­ity of Nation­al Monu­ments Record of Scot­land records held on the Can­more data­base. Repro­duced by per­mis­sion of Ord­nance Sur­vey on behalf of His Majesty’s Sta­tion­ery Office. © Crown copy­right and data­base right 2024. All rights reserved. Ord­nance Sur­vey Licence num­ber AC0000821810, Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity. Con­tains data © His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment Scot­land 2024.

The Nation­al Monu­ments Record covers:

  • Archae­ology – records of excav­a­tions, sur­veys and research into human activ­ity from the Meso­lith­ic era to the present day.
  • Archi­tec­ture – records and images of our monu­ments and build­ings, includ­ing their design, con­struc­tion and evolution.

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  • Indus­tri­al sites – records of indus­tri­al build­ings and pro­cesses and their impact on Scotland’s his­tor­ic environment.
  • Mari­time – records relat­ing to Scotland’s mar­ine his­tor­ic envir­on­ment, includ­ing shipwrecks.

There are over 6,800 records on the Can­more data­base with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. Of these, around 2,000 may be char­ac­ter­ised as archi­tec­tur­al, 5,000 as archae­olo­gic­al and 200 may be cat­egor­ised as both.

His­tor­ic land-use assess­ment His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment Scot­land has provided a Scot­land-wide view of land-use in mod­ern and past times, called the His­tor­ic land use map. The work rel­ev­ant to the Cairngorms depicts how the land­scape has changed over time, enabling an under­stand­ing of the ele­ments of the his­tor­ic envir­on­ment (Fig­ure 2 and Fig­ure 3).

With­in the Nation­al Park, as expec­ted lay­ers of his­tor­ic land-use are focussed along the straths, in par­tic­u­lar Strath­spey, Deeside, Strath­don and Glen­buchat, and Strath Avon and Glen­liv­et. Nar­row lin­ear mosa­ics of land-use change also extend up the Angus Glens to the south.

The Assess­ment reflects that much of the major areas of change along the Strath are asso­ci­ated with more con­tem­por­ary change from man­aged and plant­a­tion wood­land and com­mer­cial forestry. Great­er his­tor­ic diversity stems from the planned set­tle­ments, designed land­scapes, routes and agri­cul­tur­al pat­ters, that are cap­tured in the spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies and Iden­tity of the straths.

Typ­ic­ally, the extent and range of land uses can be related back to the size (in par­tic­u­lar width) of the straths and glens that extend into and across the Cairngorms and the estates that own the land. This cre­ates an intim­acy of his­tor­ic char­ac­ter along these nar­row land­scapes, that con­trast markedly with the extens­ive open tracts of rel­at­ively uni­form char­ac­ter of plat­eau and moun­tain­ous uplands. Span­ning between these two extremes, typ­ic­ally on the enclos­ing slopes to the glens and straths are blocks of plant­a­tion forestry and wood­land, inter­spersed with irreg­u­lar pock­ets of man­aged woodland.

Most of the smal­ler nar­row­er dead-end glens (the Angus Glens to the south and trib­u­tary glens off the large straths of the rivers Spey, Dee and Don) com­prise primar­ily a mosa­ic of rec­ti­lin­ear fields and farms on the flat­ter glen floors and strath, with pockets

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of rough graz­ing on the imme­di­ate lower slopes. Fur­ther pock­ets of rough graz­ing extent fur­ther up and into the more hid­den remote part of the glens.

Where the glens begin to widen out at Glen Garry and the upper heads of Deeside and Don­side, this mosa­ic is inter­spersed with unen­closed improved pas­ture and from the 19th cen­tury small hold­ings, adding to the vari­ety and rich­ness of land use.

Fig­ure 2 Type of his­tor­ic land use accord­ing to the His­tor­ic land-use assess­ment. Repro­duced by per­mis­sion of Ord­nance Sur­vey on behalf of His Majesty’s Sta­tion­ery Office. © Crown copy­right and data­base right 2024. All rights reserved. Ord­nance Sur­vey Licence num­ber AC0000821810, Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity. Con­tains data © His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment Scot­land 2024. Legend on next page.

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Type of his­tor­ic land use

Agri­cul­tur­al planned vil­lage Air­field Canal fea­tures Cemetery Com­mer­cial peat extrac­tion Coun­try park Croft­ing town­ship Cul­tiv­ated former park­land Deer lawn Designed land­scape Fresh­wa­ter area Golf course Hold­ings Indus­tri­al or com­mer­cial area Indus­tri­al planned vil­lage Indus­tri­al-scale farm­ing unit Man­aged wood­land Medi­ev­al town Medi­ev­al vil­lage Medi­ev­al / post-medi­ev­al cur­vi­lin­ear-shaped fields

Major roads Open­cast site Planned rec­ti­lin­ear fields and farms Planned vil­lage allot­ments Plant­a­tion Power gen­er­a­tion Quarry Rail­way fea­tures Recre­ation area Rec­ti­lin­ear fields and farms Reser­voir Restored agri­cul­tur­al land Rough graz­ing Ski area Small­hold­ings Sub-rect­an­gu­lar fields and farms Sum­mer huts Tra­di­tion­al peat cut­ting Unen­closed improved pas­ture Urb­an area

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Fig­ure 3 His­tor­ic land use peri­od accord­ing to the His­tor­ic land-use assess­ment. Repro­duced by per­mis­sion of Ord­nance Sur­vey on behalf of His Majesty’s Sta­tion­ery Office. Crown copy­right and data­base right 2024. All rights reserved. Ord­nance Sur­vey Licence num­ber AC0000821810, Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity. Con­tains data © His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment Scot­land 2024.

Peri­od of his­tor­ic land use

Medi­ev­al Medi­ev­al / post-medi­ev­al 17th — 20th cen­tury 18th 19th cen­tury 18th — 20th cen­tury 18th cen­tury — present

19th — 20th cen­tury 19th cen­tury — present 20th cen­tury 20th cen­tury — present Late 20th cen­tury — present None

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The asso­ci­ation of more var­ied land­cov­er in the lar­ger and wider Strath Spey and Deeside, is inter­spersed with a wider vari­ety of land use, sur­round­ing the lar­ger set­tle­ments. Planned Agri­cul­tur­al Vil­lages estab­lished between the late 1700s and early 1800s includ­ing New­ton­more and Kin­gussie in Strath Spey and Ordie and Bal­later in Deeside as well as the set­tle­ment of Strath­don are sur­roun­ded by these vari­ous types of pas­ture and rough graz­ing as well as hav­ing Planned Vil­lage Allot­ments for grow­ing food.

Designed land­scapes both lar­ger includ­ing those along Deeside and the Doune of Rothiemurchus near Aviemore, and smal­ler provide import­ant wooded set­tings to adja­cent set­tle­ments as well as rich­ness and diversity of land­cov­er and pat­tern. Whilst not typ­ic­ally asso­ci­ated with the Cairngorms, sev­er­al small pock­ets of croft­ing town­ship land use exist at loc­a­tions includ­ing New­ton­more and Skye of Curr.

Sched­uled Monu­ments Sched­uled Monu­ments (Fig­ure 4) are nation­ally import­ant sites, build­ings and oth­er fea­tures of arti­fi­cial con­struc­tion giv­en leg­al pro­tec­tion under the Ancient Monu­ments and Archae­olo­gic­al Areas Act 1979. There are 110 sched­uled monu­ments recor­ded with­in the Nation­al Park cov­er­ing 6 of the 8 peri­ods recor­ded. They include chambered buri­al cairns and asso­ci­ated stone circles of late Neo­lith­ic age; examples of Iron Age defens­ive remain such as the afore­men­tioned Dun-da-lamh hill fort; Pic­tish remains such as the 8th cen­tury Loch Kin­nord Cross Slab; mil­it­ary struc­tures such as the 18th cen­tury Han­overi­an fort of Ruthven; and indus­tri­al remains such as the 18th / 19th cen­tury iron­stone mine-crush­ing mill at the Well of Lecht.

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Sched­uled monu­ments 1 2 3 4

Fig­ure 4 Dens­ity of Sched­uled Monu­ments with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. Repro­duced by per­mis­sion of Ord­nance Sur­vey on behalf of His Majesty’s Sta­tion­ery Office. © Crown copy­right and data­base right 2024. All rights reserved. Ord­nance Sur­vey Licence num­ber AC0000821810, Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity. Con­tains data © His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment Scot­land 2024.

Gar­dens and Designed Land­scapes Designed gar­dens and land­scapes (Fig­ure 5) form a rel­at­ively small part of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park’s land­scape, with the major­ity being coun­try house gar­dens and policies. Com­pon­ents include wood­lands, park­lands, mead­ows, water fea­tures, glass houses, pin­etums, kit­chen gar­dens, form­al gar­dens, aven­ues, drives and approaches, archi­tec­tur­al fea­tures, statu­ary and vistas.

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‘The Invent­ory of Gar­dens and Designed Land­scapes in Scot­land’, which is main­tained by His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment Scot­land, lists 10 gar­dens and designed land­scapes with­in the Nation­al Park:

Aber­deen­shireHigh­landPerth and Kinross
Bal­mor­al CastleAult­moreBlair Castle
Can­dac­raig HouseCastle GrantFalls of Bruar
Glen TanarDoune of Rothiemurchus
Inver­cauldKin­ara

Fig­ure 5 Invent­ory gar­dens and designed land­scapes with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. Repro­duced by per­mis­sion of Ord­nance Sur­vey on behalf of His Majesty’s Sta­tion­ery Office. © Crown copy­right and data­base right 2024. All rights reserved. Ord­nance Sur­vey Licence num­ber AC0000821810, Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity. Con­tains data © His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment Scot­land 2024.

The invent­ory is a list of sites that meet the cri­ter­ia for defin­ing nation­al import­ance. The effect of pro­posed devel­op­ment on a garden or designed land­scape is a mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tion in the determ­in­a­tion of plan­ning applic­a­tions (wheth­er the proposed

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devel­op­ment is with­in the garden or designed land­scape, or out­side its bound­ary but prox­im­al to it).

While the invent­ory is con­cerned with his­tor­ic land­scapes of nation­al import­ance, there are oth­er his­tor­ic land­scapes that are of more loc­al sig­ni­fic­ance. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park His­tor­ic Designed Land­scapes Pro­ject (Fig­ure 6) iden­ti­fies 33 his­tor­ic and designed land­scapes with­in the Nation­al Park and provides inform­a­tion about the his­tory and con­text of each.

Fig­ure 6 Loc­a­tion of designed Land­scape iden­ti­fied through the Cairngorms Nation­al Park His­tor­ic Designed Land­scape Pro­ject. Repro­duced by per­mis­sion of Ord­nance Sur­vey on behalf of His Majesty’s Sta­tion­ery Office. © Crown copy­right and data­base right 2024. All rights reserved. Ord­nance Sur­vey Licence num­ber AC0000821810, Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority.

Although not stat­utory des­ig­na­tions and loc­al­ised in their influ­ence, these designed land­scapes can be seen to make a sig­ni­fic­ant con­tri­bu­tion to land­scape char­ac­ter through their build­ings, policy wood­lands, park­land, sur­round­ing plant­a­tions and fields, and in turn the rich diversity of the spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies, espe­cially with­in the straths and glens. While some are com­par­at­ively isol­ated and stand out in the

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land­scape through their con­trast with their moun­tain­ous set­ting, oth­ers bene­fit from their prox­im­ity to neigh­bour­ing land­scapes, as for example at Strath­don and around Kin­gussie, where they can be seen to have a group value. Although the land­scapes can be cat­egor­ised to some extent by their peri­od, style or oth­er char­ac­ter­ist­ics, each one has a dif­fer­ent story to tell, depend­ing on the cir­cum­stances of its creation.

Bat­tle­fields His­tor­ic bat­tle­fields make a dis­tinct­ive con­tri­bu­tion to an area’s sense of place and his­tory, both loc­ally and nation­ally. They are a superb resource for edu­ca­tion, help­ing us under­stand why sig­ni­fic­ant events in his­tory unfol­ded as they did and provid­ing a tan­gible link to some of the key fig­ures of his­tory. The ground on which the battles were fought has enorm­ous poten­tial for attract­ing tour­ists, as well as for gen­er­al recre­ation, allow­ing vis­it­ors to exper­i­ence the site of a dra­mat­ic his­tor­ic­al event for them­selves and ima­gine the past.

Fig­ure 7 Invent­ory bat­tle­fields with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. Repro­duced by per­mis­sion of Ord­nance Sur­vey on behalf of His Majesty’s Sta­tion­ery Office. © Crown copy­right and data­base right

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  1. All rights reserved. Ord­nance Sur­vey Licence num­ber AC0000821810,
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