Bamff sits on the Highland Boundary Fault — the geological divide that separates the Scottish Highlands from the lowlands to the south. It is a position that gives the estate an unusual ecological character: upland and lowland habitats meeting and overlapping across a varied terrain of hill, woodland, wetland and field.

To the north, the two hills of Hilton and Balduff rise above the estate, their slopes transitioning from heather moorland into a native woodland planting scheme that began in 2018 and is now visibly maturing – hazel, holly, pine and oak establishing themselves across 100 hectares that had been grazed by sheep for centuries. In time this will become a significant area of mixed upland woodland, reconnecting the higher ground to the wooded estate below.

The southern and lower third of the estate is the heart of the Bamff Wildland Project – former sheep pasture and mixed plantation now given over to natural regeneration and low-density conservation grazing. Five years on from the removal of sheep, the fields are transforming: grassland diversifying, scrub establishing, thorn thickets thickening into cover for mammals and nesting birds. Field boundaries that were fixed features of the farmed landscape are becoming theoretical as vegetation spreads and internal fencing comes down.