Mar Lodge Annual Review 2025

Last year marked the 30th anniversary of Mar Lodge Estate National Nature Reserve, the UK’s largest National Nature Reserve, being acquired by the National Trust for Scotland. The Trust is only 30 years into its 200-year vision for the estate, based on our charitable objectives of: ecological restoration and conservation; promoting open access for all; and practising Highland sport.

2025 was another very busy year for teams across the estate, including hospitality, functions, estate management, stalking, ranger service, and ecology. Together, they achieved significant progress on several key initiatives.

Key projects across the estate included the ongoing restoration of the estate’s Caledonian pinewood, which has been the major conservation project of the last 30 years, with over 2,000 hectares of naturally regenerating pine, birch, rowan and willow woodland bringing this habitat back to life. Major monitoring projects in 2025, for both the moorland and woodland features on the estate, showed that progress is going well.

Work on the Buildings project continued, with major changes underway in the Stable Block, including the creation of a new two-bedroom staff apartment. Work also started on renovating the Porter’s Lodge (by Victoria Bridge), which will soon become holiday accommodation. One of the main findings from a community consultation back in 2021/22 was the need for more local housing, so it’s been good to get this project underway, building on previous work to increase the estate’s housing stock.

There was plenty to keep the Estate team busy around the lodge, including interior and exterior painting, decorating, and joinery work. The Hospitality and Functions teams had a record-breaking year too, with both income and quantity up, including 46 events, 27 weddings, and 2015 guests staying with us.

The Stalking team has started utilising new thermal-imaging drone technology to aid their deer management, which has proved a useful tool for locating deer over large areas and enabling the stalkers to be more efficient with their time and vehicle use.

To mark the estate’s 30th anniversary, rangers created a pop-up ‘re-photography’ exhibition. Photos taken across the previous 30 years on the estate were ‘retaken’ in 2025 to show how the landscape has changed. These were installed over the summer holidays at the Linn of Dee and Linn of Quoich.

The realigned East Quoich path upstream of the Punchbowl also had its first full season and proved extremely popular. Further work was required since footfall had increased, and so a second phase of the project (flying in local stone to surface or stabilise some sections) was undertaken in the autumn.

Interpretation in some of the bothies was refreshed. With thanks to help from the Mountain Bothies Association and Friends of Bob Scott’s, interpretation panels have been installed in the four bothies across the estate.

This, however, is only a fraction of the work undertaken at Mar Lodge Estate in 2025, and the Annual Review provides more details on these achievements and other ongoing projects across the estate.