Exclusive:Whisky chief buys Aberdeenshire castle and grounds after rewilding company has to sell up

Beldorney estate has been sold by Highlands Rewilding

One of Scotland’s prominent whisky figures has bought an Aberdeenshire castle and grounds from a rewilding company that was forced to sell up over financial issues.

Grant Gordon, a scion of the William Grant & Sons whisky empire, which produces single malts including Balvenie and Glenfiddich, is in the process of buying Beldorney Castle and part of its 350-hectare estate.

The property has been owned by former Greenpeace director Jeremy Leggett’s company Highlands Rewilding since 2021.

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The mass-ownership company currently manages two rewilding projects in the Highlands of Scotland at the Bunloit Estate and here on the Beldorney Estate.

It was previously in Mr Gordon’s family when Sir William Grant, the founder of William Grant & Sons, owned the estate for a period in the early 1900s.

The Scotsman understands the whisky chief has bought a large chunk of the estate including its castle, while a neighbouring landowner in the community has bought a smaller bit of land.

The statues of William and Elizabeth Grant, the founders of the distillery, can be seen in the courtyard of the distillery.

No plans on the future management of the Aberdeenshire estate have been made public yet.

Highlands Rewilding, a company set up to rewild areas of the country, was forced to sell off its estates, which also include Tayvallich on the west coast and Bunloit in Inverness-shire, to pay back an £11m loan taken out to purchase land for its initiatives.

Entrepreneur Jeremy Leggett is founder and chief executive of Highlands Rewilding, which owns three estates in Scotland – he hopes the ground-breaking sale and agreement can be copied in other places

Mr Leggett said a total of 17 buildings across the company’s three areas of operation had been sold and most of its land - approaching 1,500 hectares - has been sold to buyers who he said “still want to partner with the company on land management.”

Some 500 hectares are still on the market, with Mr Leggett saying he hopes they will go to a buyer or buyers who will be “willing to partner with us on land management so our team would be able to continue its nature-recovery work on the whole estate.”

These include the island of Danna and the Ulva Peninsula on the west coast, which are on the market in two lots for offers over £3,350,000 with Strutt and Parker.

Commenting on the Beldorney sale, Mr Leggett said: “I and the Highlands Rewilding team are very pleased with the end result of our sales of land and buildings on Beldorney.

“The land has been sold to two local families who are intent on continuing nature restoration.

“The buildings have returned to local families. We are delighted to see the same pattern of ownership transfer to local interests intent on nature recovery unfolding on Tayvallich.

“That pattern is a considerable secondary benefit of the Highlands Rewilding model. Meanwhile the primary benefit - data-led land-management for investable nature recovery - remains firmly in play, via partnerships underway and in train.”

Mr Leggett said the large bridging loan from the state-owned UK Infrastructure Bank had been a “risky” but necessary move to secure land at Tayvallich initially, half of which was then sold in a much-lauded deal to the Barrahormid Trust which will hold it in perpetuity for nature restoration and community development, including house building.

Dr Josh Doble, Community Land Scotland’s (CLS) policy manager, previously said CLS was “deeply concerned” about the sales “to repay enormous loans they took out to buy the land in the first place.”

He previously told The Scotsman: “Scottish land acquisitions should not be based upon these speculative financial models which require the rapid creation of underdeveloped natural capital markets in order to be financially viable.”

Grant Gordon is a trustee of the Cabrach Trust, which he founded in 2011.

The Trust owns Speyside’s newest distillery - the Cabrach Distillery - which saw its first distillation take place last year.