Current Literature
SCOTLAND UNDER TRUST By Robert Hurd
The National Trust for Scotland, founded in 1931, has been less concerned with acquiring beauty-spots than with preserving paces notable either for their architecture or for their historical and sentimental associations. In the latter category come part of the field of Bannockburn; the monu- ment at Glenfinnan which marks the place where Prince Charlie raised his standard in 1745, and the site of his head- quarters at Culloden; a fort on the Antonine Wall; a stone by which Bruce rested in Galloway; the Bachelors' Club at Tarbolton, where Burns junketed ; and the birthplaces of Barrie (at Kirriemuir), Carlyle (at Ecclefechan), and Hugh Miller (at Cromarty). Buildings acquired for the sake of their architecture (often in the teeth of Town Councils bent on schemes for road-widening and car-parking) range from show- places like Culross Palace to plain seventeenth-century houses in Linlithgow, all of them excellent examples of the native building tradition. The Trust, however, does not only aim at preserving the past, and two of its recent ventures are experi- ments whose full value will not be seen for some years. The first is the acquisition (with the help of the Scottish Mountain- eering Club) of about twenty square miles of Glencoe and Dalness Forest, which include not only the scene of the Massacre, but some of the best rock-climbing and hill-walk- ing in Scotland. The second is the bequest of a 2,000-acre farm on the Isle of Mull, which the Trust took over in order to demonstrate how, using modern methods, farming could be made to pay in the West Highlands : good work has already been done in eradicating bracken, inoculating cattle, and reconditioning arable ground. Scotland Under Trust (Black, 6s.) is mainly an ample and well-illustrated catalogue of the Trust's properties; Mr. Hurd does not attempt to dis- cuss the wider social issues involved, such as the effects of ownership by a public body, the right balance between pre- servation and development, the relation between sportsmen and walkers in the Glencoe National Park. But the plain record does convince us that the Trust is far more than a preserver of the past, and is likely to play an active and enlightened part in Scotland's future development.
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