Very cute gift for the person who has everything (or an ambitious teenager!)

[WendyWeber]

One square foot of a Scottish estate and the right to call yourself Lord/Laird or Lady - £20 + p&p

DS2 just got one - he has framed the title deed and hung it on his wall

What a great pressie! Fun!

Hmm, dd is 21 this year and would fancy herself as a Lady.

that is wicked.
My Ds owns part of the moon. part of a scottish estate would be good too.

Dame Lapin. It's got a ring to it!

Don't like the sound of that one bit. I take it this land is currently privately owned - like large tracts of Scotland - or am i mistaken

Yes, it's privately owned - part of a large estate - I assumed the estate is land-rich but cash-poor.

Why don't you like it, ptd? It looks like win-win to me.

land/estate-rich and cash-poor elicits no sympathy from me. Give the land back to the people, after all they took it from the people in the first place.

And now they take the people for mugs once more by getting them to pay for paltry bits of grass.

I realise I am humourless on this matter but it sticks in my craw.

"Give the land back to the people, after all they took it from the people in the first place"

I suspect you'll find that is true of pretty much every piece of privately owned land in the country. I suppose I should give my home back to whoever the Quakers stole the land from all those years ago...

Give the land back to which people?

And then they would do what with it?

Huge tracts of Scotland are owned by a very small number of people.

And not so much now about 'giving it back' as about stop being allowed to take money from the general population to fund the crumbling mini-empires of outdated aristocracy.

\ /

People wouldn't do anything with it other than live on the land without having one person ultimately control and profit whatever happens over a huge, huge portion of it.

They're not "taking money from the general population" though - they're selling a bit of land, with a jokey title, and the right to visit and enjoy it.

Huge tracts of England are also owned by a small number of people too, eg HRH and the Duke of Westminster, and they're not offering bits of theirs up for grabs!

"the right to visit and enjoy it"

they're trying to prop up their crumbling pile by taking £20 off people and then giving them 'the right' to visit. Like, they couldn't just accept it stinks that no one has this right anyway.

I must re-read Who Owns Scotland. It's a lot of individuals (very few Brits) and majot corporations, if I remember right, who own vast swathes of Scotland and keep people out.

Land ownership is a bit sensitive in Scotland though, as almost all the poor bloody peasants were thrown out in the Highland Clearances. And until very recently Scots land laws were quite regressive and allowed people to swan in, buy up large tracts of land and make life really quite unpleasant for the locals in rural areas. Weren't there some islands that were sold to some idiot multi-millionaire who wanted to get rid of all the residents?

"who own vast swathes of Scotland and keep people out"

and your point is?

my point is I personally do not agree with huge areas of Scotland being privately owned and public access prohibited. It is part of an antiquated system which is very difficult to change but land reform has been a big issue fpr the Scottish parliament.

But this way public access is not prohibited so that must be better, no?

But in any case, ownership is ownership - as in England - are you suggesting that the Govt (of either country) should be able to seize land back from its owners?

I don;t like this way of doing it (if this is privately owned land). Legislation is the way forward, not getting the punters to pay them more moeny in some pseudo-feudalistic way. I'll maybe look it up. Although it is geting late.

of course they can't seize land back. Legislation. And there have been famous cases like Knoydart where local people came together with trusts to buy back land.