Royals have fished and hunted on the 11,500-acre Abergeldie Estate in the Cairngorms National Park since the 1850s. The property had been owned by the Gordon family for 500 years, ever since it was given to the family by King James III. But Alastair Storey, CEO of catering company Westbury Street Holdings, paid £23 million for the estate in 2021 after John Gordon, Baron of Abergeldie, died in 2020. Storey has plans to turn it into a commercial shooting destination, including updating and adding accommodations. And paperwork filed with the Aberdeenshire Council confirms that the royal lease has been terminated, and "the sporting rights at Abergeldie [...] will be actively run by the new laird. To facilitate the transformation and to effectively run the estate, new facilities will be required," per Daily Mail.
So it's out with the royals and in with commoners, or at least the commoners with enough money to pay for a hunting holiday in Scotland. But thankfully, there aren't any hard feelings over the lease being revoked, and the Windors still have 50,000 acres of Balmoral estate to use, so we think they'll be okay.
