WHAT is it about open, unspoilt landscapes that makes people want to stamp themselves all over it? Not content with looking at it, we must, like cats offered fresh litter, mark our ­territory.

If you buy a patch of island ground for your bolthole, it appears to now be mandatory that you build the most ­ostentatious property you can.

The less in keeping with the vernacular it is, the easier it seems to be to get planning ­permission.

Although there is an ­argument that if upwards of £20k is spent on the ­supporting evidence and it runs to ­hundreds of pages, then most planners – and neighbours – can be forgiven for ­throwing in the towel fairly early on.

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Across the islands, these monstrosities are dotted around the best of the views.

No expense is spared in sourcing the ­perfect slate, and the right stone. ­Farrow and Ball must be close to creating an ­entire ­Hebridean palette to cater for ­“croft-adjacent” chic.

London provides the most sumptuous of furnishings, shipped at great expense, and if you ham the green qualities up enough, you will have The Times Magazine almost ­dribbling in anticipation of a six-page spread.

The richer and the more well ­connected you are, the more “statement” the house and the greater the chance of press ­attention and an award.

From questionable takes on forts, to hobbit holes, and indescribable heaps that we are patronisingly told are “inspired by the vernacular”, the commonality is that those who build them don’t have to look at them. And for that they should be grateful.

When every house in a township is built north to south, with its back to the ­prevailing wind, the clever ­architect ­wanting to add to their portfolio of ­statement homes will almost certainly turn it the other way.

After all, there is no better way to announce your presence than by refusing to go with the flow.

What japes, watching people brake hard in horror; struggling to hold the road as they catch their first glimpse of the ­latest in modern design.

At night, their windows blast light into their surroundings. No blinds or curtains here – just great seas of glass, staring into the horizon.

In the winter, the big hollow eyes stare right back at us as we pass. Dark voids where homes should be.

They have made their mark. The ­designer gardens will flourish for a ­season, before the sheep and the salt launch their twin attacks.

And it goes further. If we buy a house, we must immediately add to it. We don’t live there, but we almost certainly need a shed/star-gazing room/other type of ­addition. In case someone ventures near, we will surround the place in boulders.

Some build cairns in honour of their own achievements, changing a view ­forever. Because they can.

And there will always be those who are not content with simply building or ­adapting a house.

The ultimate goal is to own a whole island, preferably one with few or no human inhabitants … After all, there is money to be made.

Rewilding is painfully in vogue – assuming of course that the rewilding of which we speak is the capitalist kind.

First, we let what we think is “nature” run amok, then we invite people at their considerable expense to trample all over it, disturbing whatever nature is there as they learn about survival.

Next, we get a multi-page spread on how people can ­escape to our rewilding. Shortly ­after, we wonder why there are no flowers ­anymore.

Discovering that grazing animals are useful – not least for making things look pretty enough that people will spend the equivalent cost of a decent ­family car to sit in a cloud of midges, feasting on ­lobster and patting themselves on the back for their eco-creds – must warrant at least one Guardian article on the surprising benefits of herbivores. Who knew?

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Instagram will be awash for weeks in the inspirational quotes they have found whilst waiting for the ferry, and they will doubtless dine out for months back in civilization about the incredible idyll in which they left a piece of their heart. They will recommend the escape to their slack-jawed friends, and so the cycle of virtuous escape porn will continue, unabated.

There is, of course, nothing new under the sun. In both the Enlightenment and Romantic periods, people sought first to control, and then to live with, nature. On their terms, of course.

That Romantic fascination with the sublime still informs much of how we see nature today.

Towering mountains are given revered status. We look upon them with awe. At the same time, as postmodern creatures who like to have our cake and eat it, we tramp up them, turning them into personal challenges – individualism at its worst.

FIRST, we worship it, then we destroy it. Images last week of queues to reach the summit of Everest, and the news that 11 tonnes of rubbish has recently been removed only serves to ram home the point.

The Fairy Pools in Skye are a perfect example of this phenomenon closer to home.

It’s a new name, and a new mythology.

The area has a perfectly good Gaelic name, Coire na Creiche, meaning corrie of the spoils, but it’s hard to pronounce so few make the effort. The first mention of Fairy Pools didn’t appear until 1930, according to Catherine MacPhee, from Skye and Lochalsh Archive Centre.

The area where Coire na Creiche is ­situated is Glen Brittle. Over 400 years ago, it was the site of a bloody battle ­between Skye’s MacLeod and ­MacDonald clans.

The battle was allegedly fought over the poor treatment of a MacLeod woman after she failed to give her MacDonald husband an heir. Fairy stories are nicer. They don’t force us to confront our past, or human failings and cruelty.

Instead, we create new stories and ­ensure our cameras point away from the overflowing car park bins, away from the damage done by human feet, and away from the paths and bridges installed in an effort to protect the ground. Some of us have the audacity to complain that the new infrastructure spoils the experience.

And yet, when it comes to building houses that people actually intend to live in.

When it comes to creating things that may not have enormous architectural ­significance, but will serve a useful purpose, the hoops that must be jumped through, and the complaints received are as lacking in self-awareness as you might expect.

We can’t build a waste treatment plant – it will spoil the view. Surely, we won’t be putting a shed there – it’s going to spoil the view …

This ­Disneyfication of places – the desire to keep them ­“beautiful” (for which read “none of the local’s nonsense”) whilst building ourselves temples to our own wealth is rife wherever natural beauty is to be found.

I was reminded last week of a case where a family trying to build a ­permanent home on their own were inundated with objections to their planning application – by people who had once visited a holiday house nearby.

It would, they said, spoil their view of the sunset. A photographer who had been once, had the ­audacity to invoke the history of the cottage in ­question in support of their objection.

Invoking the history of a place you know little of in order to serve your own self-interest is up there with arriving from the deep south and explaining to locals how the monstrosity you are building speaks to the vernacular.

One could almost suggest that there is an unspoken desire to “save” the ­landscape from the savages who live there – putting their houses and sheds and ­tractors in the way of the perfect escape. ­

After all, who knows better what the ­perfect view needs, than those who first saw it through the lens of a newcomer.