A crumbling castle...and how a £2.7m sell off has sparked a VERY bitter battle for the survival of Clan Donald
From the dawn of the Celts to the glory days of the Lordship of the Isles, from Culloden to Glencoe, its galleries speak of a time when the lands of Skye's remote Sleat peninsula enjoyed a ringside seat at the centre of the known universe, rather than at its outer fringes.
Except that one final, damning chapter has yet to be written.
Because although Armadale has been the seat of Clan Donald – Scotland's largest clan – for hundreds of years, a bitter feud over the very future of this great estate has now erupted which some say threatens to rival any single calamity in the clan's long and eventful past.
Feelings have been running high since it was confirmed this month that the B-listed castle, its beautiful grounds and the Clan Donald heritage centre, which holds precious archives and artefacts dating back four centuries, have been put up for sale for around £2.7million.
It comes just a month after the trust which runs the estate decided to put just over 20,000 acres of its land on Sleat on the market for £6.7million.
The Clan Donald Lands Trust (CDLT) said it had to take the 'extremely difficult decision' to sell up after the charity ran into financial difficulties following the loss of its main benefactor, a US-based charitable foundation with links to the clan.
Despite the millions of pounds poured into the estate for decades by its US donor, CDLT's chief executive officer Alex Stoddart claimed the visitor business on the Sleat was now 'non-viable'.
The news has caused apoplexy in the clan's global diaspora who say they are the 'rightful beneficiaries' of the trust and insist the castle and its estate is not CDLT's to sell.
In a growing war of words, clansmen and women have launched Clan Donald – Save Armadale, an international fundraising campaign to block the sale and push for new management of the trust to 'preserve this jewel in the crown of Clan Donald'.
The group, which has attracted more than 400 members, believes the wider clan should have been consulted on the decision to sell, with many having financially supported the trust.
The group's gofundme page states it represents 'the betrayed beneficiaries of the deed of trust of the Clan Donald Land Trust' who are 'opposing the decision of the four absentee trustees and CEO of the trust to sell off the beautiful Armadale Heritage Centre, museum, genealogy centre, library and extensive botanical gardens'.
Campaign spokesman Morag McDonald condemned what she called 'the lack of community engagement and the contempt that people have been treated with'.
She said the campaign's plan was to raise an initial £5,000 to seek legal advice on how best to halt the sale.
It has also sparked friction locally where CDLT, a key employer in an area where crofting and tourism are the main industries, has been accused of a high-handed attitude to community relations.
'The Clan Donald estate isn't a real estate transaction, it is land families have lived on, farmed and crofted for generations, it has been an economic driver for Sleat and is integral to the identity of our community,' said Dr Andy Williamson, chair of Sleat Community Council.
'It is wrong that an absentee landlord can sell off this estate like a trophy for the wealthy with no regard for the community. This sale needs to be halted.'
Their case rests in the complex legal arrangements of the trust established when clan members answered a call from Lord Godfrey Macdonald, the clan chief, who was forced to sell off a large part of the Macdonald estates to pay death duties and inherited debt after his father died in 1970.
Around £200,000 was raised – roughly £2.5million at today's values – to secure Armadale Castle, the ancestral seat of the Macdonalds of Sleat, and a large part of the Sleat Peninsula, with the assets to be held in perpetuity for all clansmen.
Since then, around 4,000 clan members are believed to have donated to the CDLT.
Lord Macdonald said members of the Clan Donald hierarchy, chiefly in the US, had expressed 'incredulity' that such an important decision 'could have been announced in what they consider to be such an offhand and dismissive fashion, without any prior consultation'.
He said that while he was 'supportive in principle' of the trust selling some assets, mainly land, he was 'devastated' at the proposed sale of the Clan Donald Centre which he regarded as 'the cornerstone around which the principal objectives of the CDLT as a charitable foundation was established in 1971'.
He said: 'The overwhelming sentiment from overseas concerning the proposed sale of the Clan Centre, which I know is shared widely in the local community, is a strong feeling of betrayal.'
It is telling how even the clan's most powerful voice has been diminished, however, in the face of its own trust's apparent refusal to engage.
It stands in stark contrast to the remarkable call to arms on which the CDLT was founded.
Morag McDonald, 57, a retired nurse, explained: 'The trust was set up by this massive appeal, which went out to Macdonalds all over the world when Lord Godfrey said, 'if we want to retain these lands, we have to set up a trust, does anyone want to contribute?'
'When you study and read the deeds of trust, it is Clan Macdonald who are the beneficiaries of the Clan Donald Land Trust.
Essentially, all of what they are selling is the property of the Clan Macdonald.
'We are the beneficiaries but it was decided by three trustees and the CEO that they are putting everything on the market.
So thousands of people own it, but they haven't asked one person.'
Dr Williamson said: 'There's a lot of sadness, because Clan Donald is at the heart of Sleat, our history and heritage.'
He called Armadale Castle and gardens an 'anchor for tourism' given Sleat's position off the beaten track and far from the heavy tourism concentrated in the north of the island. 'If this goes, we lose a major attraction and all the other businesses, and their staff will suffer too.'
While the thoughts of some have turned to the prospect of a community buyout, Dr Williamson cautioned any bid would need to factor in both purchase costs and sizeable ongoing repair expenses.
He said: 'There seem few locally who would oppose the CDLT's sale of the 22,000-acre South Sleat Estate. There are around 200 crofters there, but their rights are well enshrined in law, so it makes very little difference to them who the landlord is.
'But although many want to preserve Armadale Castle and grounds and the rest of the businesses, there is not a single building on that estate that doesn't need work. We've heard the suggestion about £4million worth of investment is needed to bring the grounds up to standard.'
The ruined B-listed castle is currently off-limits to the public until remedial works can make it safe.
'We feel part of the problem is the trust is run by absentee trustees – at the moment, the closest one lives in Yorkshire,' said Dr Williamson.
'They've got no sense of this place, no idea of the community. They have no clue what's happening on a day-to-day basis.'
His 'worst nightmare' would be a buyer trying to turn it into a private house: 'The risk is it gets split up or bought as a trophy by someone who doesn't really know and care about its significance. Perhaps they look to knock down the castle and build a big house.'
Dr Williamson said it had been very hard to find out any information about the CDLT's intentions as its relationship with the community was 'effectively non-existent'. He said the community council had been barred from any local conversations around the future of the estate.
Eyebrows have been raised at the failure of the CDLT to make a go of things given the largesse of its chief backer, the Glencoe Foundation, down the years.
It has lavished CDLT with grants totalling more than £2million in the past five years alone, with almost £1million paid out in 2021, when the impact of the Covid pandemic was at its height.
CDLT claimed the pandemic hammered income and was catastrophic for the estate.
But Dr Williamson said: 'The pandemic was a problem for the tourism industry in Skye, but it bounced back. Equivalent attractions in the area are now thriving.'
The current board of trustees, chaired by restaurateur, Ranald Macdonald of Boisdale and Younger of Clanranald, who operates the successful Boisdale group of restaurants in London, evidently disagrees.
It wants to use the proceeds from both sales – roughly £9million – to reinvent the charity as a purely grant-giving body which, it says, will enable investment in the clan's heritage and culture long into the future.
In an earlier statement, it said: 'The CDLT visitor business has incurred losses every year since the centre opened. Sadly, this funding is no longer available.'
In a further statement to the Daily Mail, it added: 'Whilst we have empathy with the emotional response from a minority of individuals, we reiterate the fact that the trustees in all their actions have acted in the legally correct interests of the trust.'
The trust said it aims to retain the archive and library and
create a 'world-class immersive, interactive digital platform' to display its collection.
But battle lines have been drawn. This clan feud has only just begun.
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