Scotland's other King
How Perthshire's Norse Balmoral shows Scottish land ownerships changing story.
The Perthshire hills are alive. However, it is not the sound of the bagpipes roaring through the hills and glens but an altogether different tune—that of construction. While Perth may seem ever quieter and run down, the estates that dominate the vista from Kinnoull Hill grow ever more in splendour. In ages past, these hills and glens were owned by the Anglo-Scottish aristocracy; in many places, they still are. However, in Glenalmond, where the peaceful fields of Strathearn meet the Highlands of Ossian's imagination, foreign wealth is transforming the desert of the hills.
Buchanty Spout is where the salmon leap. The BBC filmed there more than a decade ago, but any local will swiftly remind you of this as if it were yesterday. A slender path leads along the northern side of the river past the waterfall. If you look for a moment away from the vortices and plunge pools of the river, through the hedge, you will see the manicured lawns and tennis court of Glenalmond House. Beyond this scene from Downton Abbey, the outbuildings are flooded with builders, plumbers, electricians, and every manner of tradesman. I count twenty vans as I ride past them on the way to a Pictish hill fort.
Glenalmond House has new owners. Stein Erik Hagen, the sixth richest man in Norway, bought the estate through his company, Canica, for 250 million kroner (£18.6 million), as reported in the Norwegian media. The previous owner was another Norwegian billionaire, Hans Rasmus Astrup, and, as the Norwegian tabloid Dagbladet reported in February, a group of Norwegian billionaires had a hunting trip with a very distinguished guest.
For years, those who live in the Glen have called Glenalmond House the Norwegian King's house. Whilst this has never been true on paper, being a friend of the current and previous owner, he is frequently spotted by locals and joined February’s hunting party. I myself once met him along the banks of the Almond. A local I meet while walking in the hills tells me that they knew someone who had worked for the previous owner , and had spoken very generously of the kindness of both Hans Rasmus Astrup and the monarch. As Dagbladet found when they visited the area recently, although no one will go on the record in this quiet, conservative part of Perthshire, all are happy to have their own Norse Balmoral nearby.
Stine Gaustadnes Hansen, a journalist at Dagbladet who recently visited the estate for the Norwegian paper, tells me that in Norway,
“The estate is considered an exclusive, private retreat, and as a prominent figure, Hagen's choice to invest in such a historical estate has sparked public curiosity. Moreover, the association between the estate and the Norwegian royal family, especially regarding hunting trips, adds another layer of intrigue for Norwegians, fueling interest in both the estate's history and its present-day use.”
While the Glen’s wealthiest visitor is unknown in Britain, Stine goes on to tell me that the owner, Stein Erik Hagen, is a “household name” in Norway and that his high profile and wealth, built on his RIMI retail group, make him a well-known figure. The mystique of the estate is only furthered by its regal visitor, and Stine says that Norwegians are divided about his visits to Glenalmond.
“The Norwegian public generally respects the Royal Family, and the King’s choice to visit the Glenalmond Estate is seen in different lights. Some view it as a positive, reflecting the longstanding connection between the royal family and Norway’s elite. Others may see it as a more controversial matter, given the public nature of the royal family’s position. There are discussions about the appropriateness of frequent royal visits to private estates, particularly when those estates are owned by wealthy, influential individuals like Stein Erik Hagen. However, these visits also align with the King’s passion for hunting and tradition, which many people understand and respect.”
The Norwegian monarch and his billionaire friends, however, are not the only ones enchanted with Perthshire estates. On a hill high above the estate lies the remains of an old fort, looking down on the Roman camp in the valley floor below. The Roman Empire ended here, and Tacitus and Agricola may have looked up at these very hills. The Norwegians are far more welcome than Calgacus’s foes, but the owners of Perthshire’s hills are changing.
To the north and east, Perthshire estates are still owned by the Cadogans, the Mansfields, and multiple descendants of Asquith's cabinet. However, these ancestral haunts are gradually fading away. The Tullybeagles Estate, once the home of the Lords of Lansdowne, is now the property of a former Citigroup executive. Indeed, now one is more likely to find land registered to a shell company in Panama or Jersey than to a member of the House of Lords.
There are exceptions. As I look north from the great cairn that sits at the top of the Sma' Glen, I can just see the Urlar Estate above Aberfeldy. This has not been bought by any billionaire or banker but perhaps, in these parts, something worse—the English. Since 2020, the Oxford University Endowment Management has owned the area as part of its rewilding mission. Indeed, in a 2024 report, the OUEM referred to it as a “natural capital investment.” The goal, beyond peatland restoration, is ultimately to use the estate as an ecotourism destination, presumably in contrast to the grouse shooting and deer stalking that take place on surrounding estates. Nevertheless, the existence of these estates is a way of life in rural Perthshire, and land reform, even post-devolution, seems a distant possibility.
As of now, the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill 2024, which aims to increase the number of people who own Scotland's land, is being debated at Holyrood. Currently, according to Andy Wightman the former Green MSP and a leading figure in the Scottish Land reform movement, 420 people own half of Scotland's private land, including the hills where I grew up. Some, like the Norwegians, are popular locally, but others are described with the same vitriol as the black factors of the Clearances. The bill promises to make it easier for communities to buy land when it comes up for sale and to try and encourage landowners to break up their estates. Nevertheless, Wightman told the New York Times that “The bottom line is they’ve introduced a bill that’s going to make no meaningful impact on the pattern of land ownership.”
In Glenalmond, where the seasons are marked by the sound of guns and the burning of the heather, however much is said in Parliament, a world without estates is hard to imagine.
Canica the company who through a variety of holding companies own Glenalmond Estate refused to comment when contacted
.