Heritage chiefs do not object to Culloden holiday park plan

The guardians of Scotland’s historic sites said it does not object to a holiday park plan at Culloden.

The proposed holiday park sits around a mile from the NTS owned section of Culloden Battefield but falls within the historic boundary of where the Jacobites and British Army clashed in April 1746. PIC: Herbert Frank.

Proposals to convert an equestrian centre at Faiebue, Culloden Moor, into a holiday park with 13 lodges and a 100-seat restaurant have been revived after being rejected by Highland Council last year.

The site sits around a mile from the NTS-owned part of Culloden Battlefield and within the historic boundary of where the battle was fought.

HES said the site was on the path of the British Army as it advanced to battle from Nairn with much of the land marshland at the time.

But the area was “not central to events” on April 16, 1746, it added, with the proposals not raising any “historic environment issues of national significance”.

The response said: “The application has been accompanied by a report detailing the results of an archaeological walkover survey and metal-detecting.

“This did not recover any artefacts likely to be related to the battle which confirms that the area was not central to the events of the battle itself and primarily provides landscape context around the battlefield.”

The statement added: “ Our view is that the proposals do not raise historic environment issues of national significance and therefore we do not object. However, our decision not to object should not be taken as our support for the proposals.”

HES said that the site was already surrounded by woodland and therefore not visible from the ‘core of the battlefield’ and scene of hand-to-hand fighting between Jacobites and the British Army and home now to the Clan Cemetery, the Field of the English or the National Trust for Scotland visitor centre.

It added that the proposed development would not be widely visible and would not affect the setting of the “particularly sensitive parts of the battlefield”.

The development was rejected last year broadly on environmental grounds and not in relation to events of 1746.

NTS, which objected to the original plans on several grounds including ‘development creep’ of changing land use, said it would formally object to the revived proposal.

Clea Warner, NTS general manager for the Highlands and Islands, said: “I can see nothing especially ‘new’ about this new submission. Nothing in this fresh application alleviates any of these concerns.”

The development at Faebuie is the latest to anger campaigners who are fighting to preserve the integrity of the wider Culloden Battlefield.

NTS owns just a third of the full battlefield, with the remainder in private hands and therefore open for development proposals.

One application, for a luxury steading conversion at Culchunaig, which sits just to the south of the NTS boundary fence in an area which saw action in 1746, is currently being decided by Government Ministers after Highland Council initially gave the go ahead for the plan.

“The application has been accompanied by a report detailing the results of an archaeological walkover survey and metal-detecting.

“This did not recover any artefacts likely to be related to the battle which confirms that the area was not central to the events of the battle itself and primarily provides landscape context around the battlefield.”

The statement added: “ Our view is that the proposals do not raise historic environment issues of national significance and therefore we do not object. However, our decision not to object should not be taken as our support for the proposals.”

HES said that the site was already surrounded by woodland and therefore not visible from the ‘core of the battlefield’ and scene of hand-to-hand fighting between Jacobites and the British Army and home now to the Clan Cemetery, the Field of the English or the National Trust for Scotland visitor centre.

It added that the proposed development would not be widely visible and would not affect the setting of the “particularly sensitive parts of the battlefield”.

The development was rejected last year broadly on environmental grounds and not in relation to events of 1746.

The development at Faebuie is the latest to anger campaigners who are fighting to preserve the integrity of the wider Culloden Battlefield.

NTS owns just a third of the full battlefield, with the remainder in private hands and therefore open for development proposals.

Andrew McKenzie, former general manager at Culloden Battlefield Centre and owner of Highland Historian Heritage Consultancy and Tours, said there was no doubt the site was on the Culloden Battlefield.

He said: “This application is within both the agreed Battlefield Inventory Boundary and the Cullodon Muir Conservation Area boundary for good reason: Because it is on the Battlefield of Culloden.”

Mr McKenzie said that vast historical research into the battlefield site left no room for ignorance over the value of such sites.

In his official objection to the Treetops application, he added: “Christopher Duffy has conducted the most significant study of this important build up which is published and available to you all in Fight for a Throne: The Jacobite ’45 Reconsidered.

“I have worked closely with Christopher for many years to understand the wider topography and tactical nuances of this battle site and the fact that his work and the work of Tony Pollard, Murray Pittock and others has not even been referenced in any of the application documents is telling of the ignorance of up to date research that we allow in the planning application procedure when it comes to developing such an important heritage site.”

He added: “Ignorance is inexcusable when discussing developments upon Culloden Battlefield in 2020. It is also inexcusable to claim or infer that sites like this are not on Culloden Battlefield.”

Dr David Learmonth, of the Group to Stop Culloden Development, has also lodged his formal objection to the holiday park plan.

He said it posed a “profound, irreversible physical damage to the battlefield and associated archaeology”.

Dr Learmonth also raised concerns about the impact of the holiday park on traffic on the B9006 which already takes a large volume of tourist traffic, much of it from overseas.

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