A Long and Tangled Saga

The Story of the Pairc Estate Community Buyout

In this book Dr Bob Chambers, a leading crofting historian, provides a painstaking and independent account of the famous Pairc community buyout – which has become a landmark case in the history of land reform in Scotland. Based on a dispassionate review of the evidence, he describes in detail the many challenges faced by the small Pairc crofting community in seeking to purchase their estate in a remote part of the island of Lewis. He sets out his own conclusions on the lessons to be learnt from this 13-years long but ultimately successful struggle – particularly for Government and other public sector agencies and for crofting communities throughout Scotland. This book will be of compelling interest for all those involved in land reform and to a much wider public, whose imagination will be captured by the story of how the Pairc community eventually managed to overcome all the many legal and financial hurdles which faced them.

"This book tells of land reform under the most challenging of circumstances. How a tiny group of dedicated people overcame their setbacks, conflicts, and inexperience. Here is a chronicle - essential for voluntary groups and policy makers - of how a scattering of villages, hanging on by a thread, pleated from that very thread a rope that pulled life back into their community.”
Alastair McIntosh
Ecologist, writer, academic and activist

"This book is an inspiring account of what can be achieved by a community who had the tenacity, the belief, and the desire to make life better for themselves. It should encourage people everywhere in Scotland and beyond.”
David Cameron
Harris businessman, and former chairman of Community Land Scotland

"Bob Chambers has written a painstakingly researched and well put-together account of how people in the Pairc area of Lewis managed to obtain ownership of the estate on which they live.”
James Hunter
Emeritus Professor at the University of the Highlands and Islands, author, and crofting historian

Dr. Bob Chambers is a historian who has become the recognised authority on Hebridean land resettlement – government backed schemes since the late nineteenth century to create new crofts and townships and to enlarge existing ones as a response to the notorious Highland Clearances. He was the first History Ph.D. graduate of the Centre for History at the University of the Highlands and Islands. Bob is the author of many detailed books on land settlement in the islands and has researched and written extensively on land issues in the Hebrides. He is a regular visitor to Lewis and knows the Pairc area well, taking a close interest in the seminal Pairc Trust community buyout story as its intriguing twists and turns unfolded.