Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Is this land our land?

“Your land, eh?”, asks the miner.
“Yes”, replies the laird, “and my grouse and my deer.”
“And who did you get this land from?”
“Well, I inherited it from my father.”
“And who did he get it from?” the miner insists.
“He inherited it from his father, of course. And he from his father. The land has been in my family for over 400 years,” the laird proudly declared .
“OK, so how did your family come to own this land 400 years ago?” the miner asks.
“Well....actually.... they fought for it!”
“Fine,” replies the miner. “Take your jacket off and I’ll fight you now for it.

Scotland 19,068,631 acres - 100%
Urban 585,627 acres - 3%
Rural 18,483,004 acres - 97%

Of the rural land, 2, 275,768 acres are in the ownership of public bodies
and 16,207,236 are in the ownership of private bodies.
Of this privately-owned rural land:
One quarter is owned by 66 landowners in estates of 30,700 acres and larger
One third is owned by 120 landowners in estates of 21,000 acres and larger
One half is owned by 343 landowners in estates of 7,500 acres and larger
Two thirds is owned by 1252 landowners in estates of 1 ,200 acres and larger

Two thirds of Scotland is owned by one four thousandth (0.025%) of the people!

Top 20 aristocratic landowners in Scotland 1995
Owner Acres
Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry 261600
Capt AAC Farquharson of Invercauld 120500
Earl of Seafield 101000
Duke of Westminster 95100
Crown Estate Commissioners 94015
Countess of Sutherland 83239
Viscount Cowdray 76600
Sir Donald Cameron of Locheil 76000
Duke of Roxburghe 65600
Baroness Willoughby de Eresby 63200
Duke of Argyll 60800
John A Mackenzie of Gairloch 56900
Earl of Cawdor 56800
The Queen 55270
Marquess of Bute 53990
Sir Ivar Colquhoun of Luss 50000
Lord Burton 48000
Earl of Dalhousie 47200
Lady Anne Bentinck 45000
Earl of Stair 43674
Total 1,554,488

8.01% of Scotland - owned by the top 20 aristocratic estates
Total Acreage above 5000 acres owned by aristocracy 2,554,399. As a % of Scotland's total land mass, 13.16%

3 comments:

Janet Surman said...

About time for another war - the CLASS WAR!

Unknown said...

A timely article for today's events & although I can see where this article leads & concludes & I am in agreement with the sentiments, it is frustrating that the article switches throughout between numbers of acres & percentages...ultimately leading to a slightly unsatisfying read on the very day that we could do with many such articles. The conclusion could have been more expressed more succinctly to clarify who actually owns 100% of Scotland ……none of the working-class of Scotland own any of Scotland, that point is agreed & made but could have been made much stronger by emphasising the figures, possibly in a concluding overall percentages paragraph.
Arthur Johnsen

ajohnstone said...

You are right that the post was badly formatted. Our apologies. It was a hasty cut and paste from another article on a companion blog

http://socialist-courier.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/scots-land.html