Asset, burden, Cultybraggan. Community site ownership in a Scottish village

Abstract

In 2007, the residents of the village of Comrie, Scotland, collectively bought the site of Cultybraggan Camp and nearby hillside land through a ‘community buy-out’ scheme under the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003. A Development Trust, made up primarily of voluntary trustees from the village, manages the site. It has goals of promoting environmental awareness as well as the site’s unique cultural heritage. Cultybraggan’s history as a prisoner of war camp during the Second World War intended to hold ‘hardcore’ Nazi prisoners, and then as a Ministry of Defense training camp engenders mixed feelings from residents and visitors alike. In this article, we reflect on our findings from ethnographic and public archaeology fieldwork in summer 2017. We use the case study of Cultybraggan to problematize the concept of community ownership of cultural heritage sites, especially those perceived as having a difficult or controversial history.