Reelig (Easter Moniack) is a modest, 'sublime' landscape that contains an outstanding collection of champion trees. Reelig Glen is recognised at a national level for its nature conservation interest. Across the designed landscape, there is a range of buildings and structures that provide evidence for the functions and ornamentation of the historic estate during the 18^th and 19^th century. A large body of archives enhances an understanding of Reelig's history, encompassing connections to Britain's Imperial past in Guyana and India.

Type of Site

Small-scale country estate landscape with woodland gorge walk.

Main Phases of Landscape Development

Circa 1750s, 1790s–1820s, 1840s–50s.

Artistic Interest

Level of interest

Some

• The structure of the designed landscape remains intact.
• Reelig Glen was visited and admired by the linguist and poet, John Leyden (1775–1811) as part of his tour of the Highlands in 1800. It is a good example of a modest 'sublime landscape', developed by two generations of Frasers in line with contemporary landscape fashion.
• The woodland environment of Reelig Glen is managed for public amenity. Admired in the 19th century for its trees, views and paths, it continues to be appreciated for aesthetic and other experiential qualities. 

Historical

Level of interest

High

• A large body of archival evidence, including a collection rediscovered in 1979, supports a more detailed understanding of the development of the designed landscape in the 18th and 19th centuries.
• Reelig is an example of an estate where connections to the British Empire, including the East India Company and the Transatlantic Slave Economy in Guyana, facilitated the development and maintenance of a country house and designed landscape.

Horticultural

Level of interest

Outstanding

• Reelig contains around 24 trees recorded as national champions, or 'remarkable' trees of Highland. 
• Many of these are located in Reelig Glen, which contains the tallest lime and larch in the British Isles, and the largest concentration of trees exceeding 55 metres anywhere in the British Isles.

Architectural

Level of interest

High

• Reelig contains a range of historic buildings and structures that relate directly to the function and ornamentation of the estate landscape during its main phases of development.
• The house, walled garden, entrance lodge and gatepiers, and Reelig bridge are of special architectural and historic interest. Other ornamental features and estate ancillaries along the Moniack Burn, also contribute architectural interest.

Archaeological

Level of interest

Some

• Archaeological sites recorded at Reelig contribute to an understanding of human activity in this landscape over a long time period. They include a prehistoric cairn and findspot of a saddle quern. 
• The reassembled 'Viking's grave' has interest for understanding how earlier monuments could be interpreted and reorganised to fit within 18th century designed garden grounds. 
• Reelig Glen contains evidence for earlier structures relating to the management of water and the sawmill, and the development of the path network in the late 18th century.

Scenic

Level of interest

Some

• The Reelig Glen Woods and the canopy of ornamental conifers around Reelig House contribute variety and interest to the local landscape. 

Nature Conservation

Level of interest

Outstanding

• Moniack Gorge in Reelig Glen is recognised at a national level as a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Special Area of Conservation.
• Reelig Glen Woods and other landscape components, including garden grounds, mature trees, woodland belts and the freshwater habitat and margins of Moniack Burn support nature conservation and biodiversity.

Reelig is located 11km west of Inverness and 2km south of Kirkhill on the south side of the Beauly Firth. The designed landscape occupies a long, narrow area of grounds along the Moniack Burn, which flows south towards the River Beauly.

Reelig House, ancillary buildings, garden grounds and woodland belts are located on the lower, flat terrain to the north. Access is from the north via an entrance gate at Reelig Gate Lodge.

On rising ground to the south, Reelig Glen is a steep wooded ravine on the lower Moniack Gorge with public paths and a collection of champion trees including some of the tallest in the UK. It is accessed separately from a minor road that runs parallel to Moniack Burn.

Moniack Gorge is designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) on account of its mixed ash woodland and lichen assemblage and as a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) for the rare Green shield-moss Buxbaumia viridis (NatureScot https://sitelink.nature.scot/). 

Reelig House and its immediate grounds are mainly secluded from view in the wider landscape except for glimpsed views from the minor road that ascends the hill to the south. Elsewhere, the canopy of its associated woodlands is more visible, particularly from the minor road through Cabrich to the west and in some vantage points to the south of Reelig House. This is due to the extent and diversity of woodland coverage around Reelig Glen, and the spiky tops of tall ornamental trees around the house. 

Archaeological sites recorded in this landscape include a cairn (Place Record ID: 12715) and the findspot of a saddle quern – a large stone used in prehistory for grinding and de-husking grains (Place Record ID: 12719). The 'Giant's Grave' to the north of Reelig House is a reconstruction of stones from a disturbed prehistoric cairn that were reassembled in the late 18^th century to resemble a 'Viking's Grave' (Place Record ID: 12705).

The inventory site is bounded by minor roads to the north, northeast and northwest. To the east and southeast of Reelig House, it is mainly bounded by field and plantation boundaries. To the south, it is bounded by minor roads and field/forestry boundaries, encompassing Reelig Glen Woods.

The designed landscape at Reelig was created on the site of an older estate by three generations of the Fraser of Reelig family. Their ancestors had owned these lands since the early 15th century (Fraser 2016: 1). From the 18th–19th centuries, they sought to maintain family solvency and improve their country residence through investment and careers abroad in the British Empire. 

The first of these individuals was James Fraser, 12th of Reelig (1713–1754). He was an East India Company Servant from 1730–48, appointed first to the Bombay Presidency then posted to Mocha in the Yemen and Cambay and Surat in India where he became a linguist, writer and major collector of Persian manuscripts (Scoular Datta 2021). 

Fraser's personal investments in trade during this time likely enabled him to replace an older residence at Reelig with a new and larger, classical-style house in 1750 (Fraser, J: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography). James Fraser died in 1754, not long after the completion of the house.

The second influential individual was Fraser's son, Edward Satchwell Fraser of Reelig (1751–1835). Brought up in England, he marked a return visit with a fir plantation in 1771 and started planning for his future as the next laird. After serving in the American Wars of Independence, he settled at Reelig in the early 1780s with his wife, Jane Fraser of Balnain (Fraser 2016: 3–5). 

Edward Satchwell Fraser held a government appointment as Collector of Customs at Inverness but remained troubled by the cost of keeping a gentleman's residence. Like many of his local contemporaries, he invested in the Transatlantic Slave Economy in the Caribbean, aware of the profits that were enabling neighbours and relations to embellish surrounding country estates (Fraser 2016: 44). In 1800, he acquired an ownership interest in lands and enslaved workers in Berbice, Guyana - mortgaging the Reelig estate and exchanging an inherited share in another plantation to do so (Alston 2021: 19, 138-140; Minault 2023). 

Edward Satchwell Fraser took an active interest in developing the designed landscape at Reelig. An estate map of 1789 shows the house with flanking wings, formal garden grounds, an area of parkland to the south, ancillary buildings and surrounding areas of woodland (Mackenzie 1789). He was likely influenced by the fashion for sublime landscape and he began a project around this time to develop woodland walks in Reelig Glen which were described in 1800 by the traveller and linguist, John Leyden, as "romantic” and its beauty, "difficult to describe” (1903: 215). The walled garden was another addition, while architectural plans catalogued in the National Archives suggest improvements to estate cottages in the late 18th and early 19th centuries (RHP47077–RHP47083). 

Between 1799 and 1822, five Fraser sons travelled in turn to seek livelihoods in Imperial settings. James and Edward Fraser initially went to the Caribbean to manage the Berbice plantation, but with failing returns the geographical focus shifted east to India to "support the dignity and name” of the family (James Fraser quoted in Coltman 2013: 303). The Berbice plantation was sold at a loss in 1817. William Fraser, the second eldest, rose through the East India Company to become a senior administrator in Delhi, but was assassinated in 1835. Of the five sons, only the eldest, James Baillie Fraser, survived to return to Scotland.

James Baillie Fraser (1783–1856), the 15th laird, was the third influential person to develop the designed landscape. After Berbice, he continued his grandfather's (James Fraser's) efforts to earn money through commerce in India before becoming an explorer, artist and writer. Returning to Scotland in the 1820s, he renewed building and landscape works at Reelig and planted exotic specimen trees to form the basis of the present collections in the garden and Reelig Glen. He is also credited with the 1840s grotto and bridge which was thought to have been built to provide employment as a famine relief scheme (Reelig Glen Land Management Plan 2024: 22). In the mid-19th century, the New Statistical Account noted that "agricultural improvements have been carried out to a very great extent” (1845: 460), and a local news article praised the extent and variety of planting in the woods and gardens (Inverness Courier 1855). 

Following the death of James Baillie Fraser in 1856 the estate passed via his sister through succeeding generations of the Fraser family (Fraser 2016: xxvi). Early editions of Ordnance Survey maps indicate that the structure of the designed landscape, still recognisable from the 1789 estate plan, largely remained intact during the late 19th and early 20th century (Mackenzie 1789; Ordnance Survey, surveyed 1872, revised 1903). 

Ownership of Reelig Glen was transferred to the Forestry Commission in 1949. From the 1970s, the estate offered holiday accommodation through converted estate buildings and new chalets. 

In 1979, a large collection of historical documents was rediscovered relating to the Frasers of the later 18th and early 19th centuries. The Fraser archive provides the basis for a better understanding of their lives, travels and interactions on a global stage and has informed various strands of scholarship (see Archer and Falk 1989; Coltman 2013; Fraser 2016; Minault 2023). The archive is also of value for understanding the development of the designed landscape through this period.

Architectural Features

Reelig House (formerly Moniack House, then Easter Moniack) (LB7821) is a classical country house, first built circa 1750 for James Fraser (c.1712–1754) to replace an earlier residence. Later alterations include a remodelled south front with ionic-columned portico entrance (1837–38 by architect William Robertson from Elgin), the demolition of earlier flanking wings (1830s) and the addition of a service wing at the east gable (1901). To the northwest is a square-plan, early-19^th century walled garden with tooled ashlar coping. 

The garden grounds around the house contain an inscribed granite memorial in the form of an urn on a plinth erected 1841 to the Fraser sons who had died abroad. The Giant's Grave is an elongated boat-shaped setting of stones constructed in the late 18^th century from a disturbed prehistoric cairn. 

Reelig Gate Lodge at the north entrance to the designed landscape is a 19^th century single storey symmetrical cottage with a canopy porch and rustic timber columns. Adjacent entrance gatepiers have ball finials. Spanning Moniack Burn, Reeligbridge (or Moniack Bridge) is a single-arched, slightly hump-backed early 19^th century bridge. Other estate ancillaries of approximately late 18^th–19^th century date are distributed along the Moniack Burn, and include former estate cottages and farm and mill buildings. 

In the upper part of Reelig Glen, there is a shallow-arched, rubble footbridge over the Moniack Burn which is believed to be a copy of a bridge in Ravenna and a grotto (both circa 1840s for James Baillie Fraser). The grotto comprises rubble-built structures intended to convey older ruins including a large arched structure and adjacent cylindrical structure. Other small-arched footbridges over minor tributaries, and the remains of former bridges likely date to the late 18^th to early 19^th century (Remembering Kirkhill p.27).

Elsewhere in the wooded grounds at Reelig Glen, there are remains of a former mill lade system (Remembering Kirkhill p.26–27) and evidence for former estate structures and land boundaries (Place Record IDs 116705 and 116711).

In the southeast part of the designed landscape, Rebeg House stands in private garden grounds on a cliff-top above Reelig Glen. This former estate residence was built and expanded in the 18^th-19^th centuries, and is a long, single-storey with attic, gabled house.

Drives & Approaches

A drive leads south from the entrance gates at Reelig Gate Lodge alongside a belt of mature trees before curving towards the south front of Reelig House. This arrangement likely dates to the early 1820s when James Baillie Fraser formalised the estate entrance. This work involved levelling rough ground, transplanting a mature lime to the entrance and remodelling or renaming an existing structure to become the 'Porter's Lodge' (Fraser 2016: 310, 313). The lodge and drive are depicted on the 1^st edition Ordnance Survey map (surveyed 1872).

Paths & Walks

Two modern public trails in Reelig Glen follow footpaths developed in the late 18^th to earlier 19^th century by the Frasers of Reelig as part of a network of romantic woodland walks. 

The 'Tall Tree Trail' ascends and descends the Moniack Gorge either side of the Moniack Burn up to the main footbridge and grotto. It passes a series of champion trees (see under Woodlands). The 'Upper Reelig Trail' is located in woods to the west of Moniack Burn and includes an open glade bordered by mature beech.

Works to build the footpaths began in the late 18^th century under the direction of Edward Satchwell Fraser of Reelig (Fraser 2016: 35). By this time, dramatic or 'sublime' landscapes were fashionable among landowners who added paths, seats, bridges and summerhouses to forested gorges and ravines to enhance access and appreciation of the 'wild' and 'natural'. Correspondence in the Fraser archive reveals the importance of the walks and wooded gorge landscape to family identity and recreation in the early 1800s (quoted and described in Fraser 2016). In around 1840, the eldest son, James Baille Fraser developed the woodland environment further with a new bridge, grotto and exotic trees (see under Woodlands). 

Reelig Glen was described in the published letters of the traveller, John Leyden, following a visit in 1800. The trees and "winding walks” were also praised in a detailed newspaper article of 1855 (Inverness Courier). The paths are now well known and popular, with interpretation provided by Forestry and Land Scotland. Public appreciation for these walks is evident from online reviews (e.g. All Trails; Walk Highlands).

Parkland

A single area of open parkland rises gently to the southeast of Reelig House. Fringed by mature woodlands to the south and west, it forms part of the setting of the house. Historic maps show it has been part of the structure of the designed landscape since the 18^th century (Mackenzie 1789, Ordnance Survey, surveyed 1872, revised 1903).

Woodland

With formal planting dating from the 18^th century onwards, Reelig Glen Woods are managed for nature conservation and public recreation and are known for their outstanding collection of tall champion trees (Reelig Glen: Forestry and Land Scotland 2024). 

The woods occupy a roughly triangular area dissected by the Moniack Gorge and are accessed via a network of public forest paths (see under Paths and Walks). Due to their extent and elevated position, the canopy is visible in some views towards the designed landscape. 

Remnant native woodland of ancient origin is found on steeper parts of the upper gorge. Beech dominates in the northwest compartments, while elsewhere, broad-leaved trees are interspersed with conifers (Scots Pine, Douglas Fir, larch and Norway Spruce). There are also two national nature conservation designations in the woods (see under Location and Setting). The woodlands support numerous birds and several species of bats, pine martens and red squirrels (information courtesy of Aird Community Trust).

Reelig Glen contains the largest concentration of trees exceeding 55 metres anywhere in the British Isles (Reelig Estate, BBC 2014). Distributed along the 'Tall Tree Trail', these include a stand of Douglas Firs of which two (Dughall Mor, and then its neighbour, Dearthair Beag) were for a time the tallest trees in Britain and Ireland in the early 21^st century. The woods also contain the tallest larch and tallest lime in the national database (Tree Register). 

Historic accounts and maps provide dating evidence for tree planting in and around Reelig Glen. On his first visit to Reelig in 1771, Edward Satchwell Fraser described the house with a backdrop of "extensive Birch woods” and arranged for 40 acres to be planted with fir (quoted in Fraser 2016: 4-5). A 1789 estate map does not show the entire area but depicts plantations in the lower (northern) parts of the glen (Mackenzie 1789). Planting in Reelig Glen was continued by Satchwell Fraser in the early 19^th century, and by his son, James Baillie Fraser, in the 1840s–50s, who also added the footbridge, grotto and exotic tree specimens. In 1855, the Inverness Courier praised the variety, noting "rarer and more delicate trees, not previously tried in the north”. It continues, "the visitor will find endless and most interesting studies of woodland glades, picturesque groups, and large single trees” (1855). 

The current woodland structure is evident by the 1^st edition Ordnance Survey map (surveyed 1872), and further planting is dated to the 1880s and around 1949 (Forestry Commission Scotland Forest Plan 2006/7: 6). 

Elsewhere in the designed landscape, blocks of mixed woodlands frame the parkland to the south east (evident Mackenzie 1789) and Reelig House (evident Ordnance Survey 1872). A narrow belt along the entrance drive, parallel to the Moniack Burn, may have been first planted as part of works to formalise the entrance in the 1820s (evident Ordnance Survey, surveyed 1872).

The Gardens

Secluded garden grounds extend from the north garden elevation of Reelig House. They comprise a long area of lawn divided loosely with hedging, mown paths and shrubs, and edged by an informal, densely planted border of mature flowering shrubs and specimen trees. There is a clipped box-lined centrepiece close to the house. A Tulip Tree and Atlas Cedar are recorded as champion trees of Highland (Tree Register 2024). 

The 1789 estate map indicates a previously more formal arrangement, showing a rectangular garden divided by axial paths with a separate orchard to the east (Mackenzie 1789). The lawn was extended in around 1818–19 (Fraser 2016: 239) and increasingly became the setting for exotic specimen trees. Mature cedars are survivors from a much greater number, planted by James Baillie Fraser in the 1840s–50s (Inverness Courier 1855; Gardeners Chronicle 1885). The present arrangement of an open central lawn bounded with trees is similar to that depicted in the revised Ordnance Survey map of 1903.

Walled Gardens

A square-plan walled garden of likely early 19^th century date stands to the northwest of Reelig House. It is mainly grassed with a central hedged enclosure and contains perimeter shrubs, trees, beds and a lean-to glasshouse.

The garden was probably built as part of a range of ongoing estate improvements either by Edward Satchwell Fraser or his son, James Baillie Fraser. It may have replaced an earlier garden enclosure, immediately to the north (Mackenzie 1789). The present structure is evident on the 1^st edition Ordnance Survey (surveyed 1872) where the interior is shown with axial paths, a central glasshouse structure, and a further glasshouse on the north wall, with a range of outbuilding structures on the outer edge of the north wall. 

Historic Environment Scotland - https://www.trove.scot/ - Place Record IDs 12705; 12715; 12719; 116705; 116711

Maps and archives

Mackenzie, William (1789) A Plan of the Estate of Reelick and the lands of Knockbain, belonging to Edward S. Fraser Esq

Ordnance Survey: Inverness-shire – Mainland XI.5 (Kirkhill) Twenty five inches to the mile, Survey date: 1872, Publication date: 1872

Ordnance Survey: Inverness-shire – Mainland XI, Six inches to the mile, Survey date: 1868–72, Publication date: 1876

Ordnance Survey: Inverness-shire – Mainland XI.5 (Kirkhill) Twenty five inches to the mile, Revised: 1903, Publication date: 1904

Ordnance Survey: Inverness-shire – Mainland XI, Six inches to the mile, Revised: 1903, Publication date: 1906

National Archives of Scotland - RHP47077–RHP47083 – Photocopies of architectural sketch plans (see individual records for details) [Online references viewed only – December 2024]

Aberdeen Press and Journal

• The laird turns from shares to chalets, Thursday 27 January 1972, p.8

BBC

• Four of Britain's tallest trees in glen near Inverness, 25 March 2014 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-26729935 [Accessed December 2025]

Inverness Courier

• Plantations and Gardening in the North Reelig Burn, 19 July 1855

Printed sources

Alston, D. (2021) Slaves and Highlanders: Silenced histories of Scotland and the Caribbean Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press

Coltman, V. (2013) 'Henry Raeburn's Portraits of Distant Sons in the Global British Empire', The Art Bulletin, vol. 95, no. 2, pp. 294–311

Fraser, K. (2017) For the Love of a Highland Home: The Fraser brothers' Indian quest, Glasgow: Bell and Bain

Gardeners' Chronicle (1885) – 'The Arboretum: Acclimatised Cedars' in 'The Gardeners' Chronicle' January 25 1885, No. 578, vol. 23, p.114

Leyden, J (Sinton, James: Editor) (1903) Journal of a tour in the Highlands and Western Islands of Scotland in 1800, Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons

Minault G. (2023) 'East Indian misfortunes: the Fraser brothers and the early Raj', Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 33, no. 4: pp.1113-1125

Scoular Datta (2021) 'James Fraser, Orientalist, and His Bodleian Manuscripts' The Bodleian Library Record, vol. 34, no. 1–2

Online sources

All Trails: Reelig Glen Circular https://www.alltrails.com/en-gb/trail/scotland/highlands/reelig-glen-circular [Accessed December 2024]

Alston, D. 'Enslaved Africans & Scottish enslavers in Guyana' https://www.spanglefish.com/slavesandhighlanders/ [Accessed December 2024]

Fraser, James (1712/13-1754): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004) https://doi-org.nls.idm.oclc.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/10107

Gordon, J. ed. (1845) The New Statistical Account of Scotland / by the ministers of the respective parishes, under the superintendence of a committee of the Society for the Benefit of the Sons and Daughters of the Clergy. Kirkhill, Inverness, Vol. 14, Edinburgh: Blackwoods and Sonshttps://stataccscot.ed.ac.uk/static/statacc/dist/viewer/nsa-vol14-Parish_record_for_Kirkhill_in_the_county_of_Inverness_in_volume_14_of_account_2/nsa-vol14-p459-parish-inverness-kirkhill?search=Kirkhill [Accessed December 2024]

NatureScot: Sitelink – Moniack Gorge (Site of Special Scientific Interest) https://sitelink.nature.scot/site/1182 [Accessed October 2024]

NatureScot: Sitelink – Moniack Gorge (Special Area of Conservation) https://sitelink.nature.scot/site/8325 [Accessed October 2024]

Reelig Estate https://www.reeligestate.com/ [Accessed December 2024]

Reelig Glen: Forestry and Land Scotland https://forestryandland.gov.scot/visit/reelig-glen [Accessed December 2024]

Reelig Glen Land Management Plan 2024, Forestry and Land Scotland https://forestryandland.gov.scot/what-we-do/planning/consultations/reelig-glen-land-management-plan [Accessed December 2024]

Reelig Glen Forest Plan (c.2006/7), Forestry Commission

Scotland https://airdcommunity.com/wp-content/uploads/Forest-design-plan-scanned.pdf [Accessed December 2024]

Remembering Kirkhill Area: Sites and Features Listing, ARCH Kirkhill Heritage Project 2022, http://archhighland.org.uk/userfiles/file/ARCH%20Project%20Reports/Remembering%20Kirkhill%20Area%2026-8-2022.pdf [Accessed December 2024]

Tree Register of the British Isles, Champion Tree Database https://www.treeregister.org/ [Accessed December 2024].

Walk Highlands – Reelig Glen https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/lochness/Reeligglen.shtml [Accessed December 2024].