A step back to the future

They are now owned by the people and are being run for the people, having been bought by the National Trust for Scotland three years ago with Lottery money.

Major progress is underway on the peaceful estate which means a step backwards in time to the days when people used leg-power rather than motor-power, to when the forests flourished, and to when the mountains were not scarred with tracks carved out by bulldozers.

It will be a long task and those who are setting it in place will never see it fulfilled, but already they can derive satisfaction from the early success.

The corridors of the Lodge, which in recent years have been quiet and empty, are alive with visitors who can rent the luxury apartments which now occupy the interior.

Mar Lodge, just seven miles from Balmoral Castle, was completed exactly a century ago for Princess Louise whose grandmother, Queen Victoria, laid the foundation stone in 1895. The Princess and her husband the Duke of Fife lived in it for several years and their daughter, who married Prince Arthur of Connaught, retained the property until her death in 1959.

The pink granite house with the red-tiled roof then passed to her next-of-kin, the Duke of Fife, who sold it to a Swiss businessman, the late Gerald Panchaud, in 1961.

In 1989, American billionaire John Kluge spent #13m on the 30-bedroom mansion and the estate, which includes four of the 10 highest mountains in Britain.

He apparently did so to allow his wife Patti, a former soft-porn actress, to fulfil her ambition of being a neighbour of the Queen.

However before their #1m renovation programme was complete the couple split up and just after it had been put up for sale it was virtually destroyed by fire.

After an appeal by Prince Charles, Kluge agreed to sell the lodge and estate, at well below market value, to a conservation organisation who would be able to continue, and accelerate, the conservation work he had started.

In July 1995 it passed to the National Trust for Scotland with the help of #10m National Lottery cash.

Toby Metcalfe, the property manager, became involved with the estate when it was bought by Mr Kluge and he is now continuing his work.

Every decision made is done so with conservation as the priority and one of the high-profile aims is the regeneration of the Caledonian pine forest by allowing growth uninteruputed by the deer population.

They are trying to achieve that regeneration without high deer fencing which, as well as being unsightly, takes its toll on birdlife and they set themselves the target of roughly halving the number of deer on the estate in a five-year programme to 650-700 stags and 950 hinds.

Three years into the programme they are on target with the stags, but this year's particularly mild winter kept the hinds out of the valleys, which made culling more difficult and there are slightly more of them than intended.

''For the past 200 years the estate has basically been run with the goal of providing traditional field sports and predominantly on Mar Lodge, that

means open-hill red-deer stalking,'' says Metcalfe.

During Kluge's time that began to change, but the trust defined this much more closely through its management plan and, as the estate is part of an internationally important area, set down clear goals.

One of the first things implemented was the closure of 10 of the 40 miles of bulldozed hill tracks thoughout the estate and pioneering work has started on reinstating the ground.

''One of the most exciting of these projects is the restoration of the Beinn a' Bhuird track which at the moment runs to a height of well over 3000ft,'' he says.

''I don't think anyone has embarked on a project like this. It is very experimental and it will take a few years to see if the methodology we have used is going to work in that extreme climate, which is like a high-level desert. It is freezing cold and dry in the winter and pretty hot and dry in the summer and creating a stable environment in which the natural plants of that area can settle and become established is quite tricky.

''One great pressure is the timescale. Things move remarkably slowly in these upland areas and timescales are long. We had to recognise we are working on a 200-year timescale.''

While most of the tracks which criss-cross Scotland's mountains were bulldozed for stalking the Beinn a' Bhuird, one was created in the 1960s with an eye on a possible ski development which never materialised.

One of the crucial elements of the management plan is the monitoring being undertaken to ensure that in 10 or 15 years' time, the information is available to assess progress.

When the National Trust took over in July 1995 the estate had 11 full-time members of staff and a number of ghillies.

There are now 13 full-time members of staff, the ghillies and a seasonal ranger, seasonal ecologist and for the first time this year, a seasonal archaeologist, because of the importance of the cultural heritage of the area.

The management plan was drawn up after extensive consultation with focus groups concentrating on community, forestry, access and cultural heritage and there was further consultation after a draft was completed.

The self-catering apartments inside the lodge, for example, were not created with the aim

of making maximum profit, although they are intended to ensure the lodge is not a drain on estate finances, but it was important that they did not affect existing community businesses. In fact they complement existing local facilities and are likely to prove a boost to tourism.

They can cope with parties of up to 14 from #110 per person per week and have been furnished mainly with original furniture. The guests can also used the dining room, library, and drawing room.

Sporting pursuits contribute significantly to the estate's income but there have been changes there as part of the integrated plan. ''For most people one of the overall objectives when going into an estate is the pleasure of the solitude, the quiet, and the fact there is limited indication of the hand of man manipulating what you are enjoying,'' says Metcalfe.

He adds that to help them achieve this they were reducing the use of vehicles, which was easily done with grouse shooting but was harder for deer stalking at the moment as they tried to reduce numbers.

''We are trying to bring closer together all the ways people enjoy the estate. If fundamentally they have to do that on foot they are all using the estate in the same way.

''If you have sweated three miles and then up to the top of a hill and you see a Land-Rover with a load of people you may wonder why they should be driven out for their sport while you had to walk out.''

So far there is little evidence of the lack of transport discouraging the sporting enthusiasts and it may in fact prove a draw.

What it does mean is that like the estate itself, those who use it in the future will be fitter.