The billionaire, the BBC broadcaster and the wallabies of Loch Lomond

Imagine for a moment you are a marsupial. Not just any marsupial. A rednecked wallaby, nestled happily on an island on Loch Lomond. You and your family have been here since the 1940s. You’re all a bit out of your comfort zone, sure, but the place has grown on you over the years. 

Needs must. Your ancestors were brought here — not from Australia, before you ask, but Hemel Hempstead — by an eccentric lady whose family once ruled the land as far as — well, honestly who knows because you’ve never left the island. That’s fine by you, there’s plenty of delicious stuff to snack on here.

The lady is long gone; apparently she made an awful racket, gleefully racing her powerboats around the loch. The less said about her brood of ankle-nipping badgers, the better. 

Today, the badgers have been replaced by fallow deer, thank the lord. There’s way more of them than you; your numbers have dwindled from 60 to about 10 over the years. Right now, two new mammals have entered the frame. They’re those bastarding bipedal ones, like the lady with the powerboats. Only these two have neither her grace nor fancy boats. They arrived on the island at dusk and since then, they’ve been creeping around the place like imbeciles. One is currently harassing you with a flashing light. Humans, eh?

They’re asking questions about your future on the island as you try to chew your grass in peace. No one tells you anything, anyway; six years ago, you learned your little haven had been sold off to a new owner. That’s when the culling chat began. 

You couldn’t believe it; casual suggestions about exterminating your entire family. ‘Non-native’ they called you. ‘Invasive’. Just because you enjoy nibbling on a rare shrub or three. Can you imagine? You hardly welcomed the relocation proposals either. Now more rumours swirl: the island is up for sale again. For the time being though, you just wish these two humans would fuck off and leave you be. Can’t a wallaby catch a break? 

Luss lips, sunk ships

The changing ownership of Wallaby Island — or ‘Inchconnachan’, its official name — is a neat encapsulation of the rise of a new elite class. Since the late 1300s, this little island, one of 22 to populate Loch Lomond along with 27 smaller islets, was owned by the Colquhouns of Luss, who own 45,000 acres around the west bank of Loch Lomond. The family have strong ties to this spot; ‘Inchconnachan’ is from the Gaelic for ‘the Colquhouns’ island’.

It was Fiona Bryde Gore (née Colquhoun), Countess of Arran and Lady Colquhoun who introduced the wallaby population to Inchconnachan. The countess — who died in 2013, aged 94 — was a particular type of old-school aristocrat: a thrill-seeker, being the first woman to travel on water at over 100mph. She also loved nature; the badgers who lived alongside the wallabies on Inconnachan were allowed to roam free. Visiting family had to wear wellies to avoid getting bitten. Elsewhere, she also kept llamas and alpacas, as one does. 

But by the time Gore died, a new class of wealthy elites had ascended: “merchants, manufacturers and financiers”, as George Orwell once put it. The old land-owning aristocracy was cash poor and asset rich. The flush nouveau riche were more than happy to help rectify this situation by taking land off their hands for large sums; the Colquhouns’ Luss Estates has sold off half its land since it was created in 1961. 

More than 50% of rural land in Scotland is owned privately, much of it still attached to hereditary estates. But the country’s biggest landowners now include multinational asset management groups like Gresham House, as well as two separate Danish tycoons: Lego heiress Sofie Kirk Kristiansen and retail billionaire Anders Povlsen. The latter owns the equivalent of 1% of Scotland’s landmass, more than King Charles. In the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park, 56% of the land is in private ownership.

So when the Colquhouns put their 100 acre uninhabited namesake island on the market for £500,000 in 2020, it was no surprise that the buyer was another billionaire entrepreneur. Enter Nick Jones, founder of glossy members club, Soho House. Jones’ Scottish connection comes via his wife, the broadcaster Kirsty Young, who hails from East Kilbride. The pair snapped up the island for £1.55 million, triple its asking price. Some people bought an air fryer in the throes of the pandemic, but kitchen appliances mustn’t quite cut it when you’re a billionaire. Besides, the couple had a plan for Inchconnachan — one that didn’t involve any wallabies.