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Explora: Environment
and Resource Conservation, recreation, or both?

measure of public enjoyment,’ linked to its location close support. It seems likely that the uncertainty over costs
to New Towns at East Kilbride and Stonehouse, and its proved to be a strong disincentive to closer engagement on
3
visibility from the M74, then being promoted as a gateway NTS’s part; but it is also arguable that the building offered
to Clydeside, would help; these were exactly the types of fewer possibilities for use as an NTS property and would not
argument he had used at Culzean. He also emphasised therefore be an attractive proposition for revenue generation.
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the importance of not just saving the building, but also Interestingly, though, Hamilton was content to proceed with
identifying uses for it thereafter, using the repurposing of a project implying significant cost at a time when Council
buildings at Culzean into a visitor centre for illustration. revenue budgets were coming under serious pressure from
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Local government reorganisation also came into play after the Thatcher administration’s policy toward Scottish local
1975; the new regional authority, Strathclyde, declined to government. 146
become involved, but the newly-formed Hamilton District
Council engaged actively with the idea of preservation, 4. Discussion
agreeing in principle to taking ownership (and ongoing Five different projects are identified here, all of which
responsibility) for Chatelherault. The NTS offered on at resulted in the creation of country parks, but with
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least two occasions to act as an intermediary to broker a
scheme agreeable to all concerned. However, a solution different outcomes in terms of the NTS’s role. At Culzean
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was still some way off. and Brodick, the NTS was able to establish a partnership
arrangement that gave them day-to-day responsibility
The impasse was eventually resolved in 1978 by the for managing the whole of the property, both house
estate selling off the property in three lots, one of which and parkland, but also provided local authority funding
included the hunting lodge, gardens, and much of the alongside that offered by CCS. At Haddo, the local
natural countryside; the Secretary of State agreeing to buy authority declined such an arrangement, preferring to
this portion, and to use the NLF to fund the restoration; and manage the park themselves; the partnership here was
Hamilton District Council undertaking to manage the site much looser, and the division between the park, free of
thereafter as a recreation area for residents and visitors. entry charges, and the house, where a charge is levied,
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An advisory group was established that included the is more obvious to the visitor. At Pollok, the NTS never
NTS, and also CCS, who offered funding toward a ranger
service, parking and interpretation – all facets of a typical came into ownership of the land, although it was given
country park – and a funding package was assembled the opportunity to do so on several occasions; instead,
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including European resources recently opened up to the it was given powers under a legally-binding Restrictive
UK applicants. The restoration took 8 years, and was not Agreement that proved effective on occasion in preventing
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without its own problems, both bureaucratic and financial, an ambitious city council from developing the land for
but the site was duly designated as a country park in housing, but which put it in a difficult position as regards
1987. It was described as ‘a park …designed for passive the Burrell and even more so the motorway extension,
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recreation… we want to see lots of people enjoying the leading to accusations of ‘selling out.’ At Chatelherault,
countryside.’ The ambition behind the project attracted the NTS acquisition was never considered, and instead,
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praise, but also criticism: one commentator described it the organisation sought to act as an intermediary in the
as ‘a gamble on increased leisure’ – which indeed it was, protracted negotiations between the parties connected
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since without the associated country park the restoration with the property.
would never have happened. Yet, for all these differences, there are a number of
Why, then did the NTS not offer to take ownership at similarities here. All the resulting country parks were
any stage in this story? The answer is partly financial; even focused on passive recreation, the enjoyment of natural
after the Scottish Office approved the costs of restoration beauty, rather than on the more active, noisy and disruptive
of the building; there was no prospect of ongoing help recreation that had prompted the UK Government to
with revenue costs other than from Hamilton District promote the country park idea in the first place. Stormonth
Council. Although it might have been possible to establish Darling was correct in identifying Culzean as different from
an agreement on the Brodick model, there is no evidence what the legislators had intended; the major difference was
that such an approach was ever considered; Hamilton was the provision of quiet and scenically beautiful countryside
allowed to take the project forward and to do the work of to be enjoyed, rather than the expendable, noisy landscapes
developing the country park and its facilities without NTS envisaged by the legislators, and the same outcome can be
identified at the other four sites, with every donor requiring
3 Stonehouse was ultimately discarded as a New Town, but a commitment to tranquil, passive recreation. In this sense
was still a live proposal at this point. at least, Culzean did indeed act as a prototype.

Volume 2 Issue 1 (2025) 11 doi: 10.36922/eer.5890