The Wildwood revisited

In 1990, a yew bow was found by a hill walker above Carrifan Gans in the Tweedsmuir hills.

 The bow turned out to be early Neolithic about 6000 years old.  It is now in the Museum of Scotland

http://www.nms.ac.uk/our_museums/national_museum/explore_the_galleries/scotland/early_people/a_generous_land.aspx

 This started a project to recreate a microcosm of the landscape occupied by the hunter who lost or threw away, his bow all those Millennia ago – The Wildwood. 

http://www.carrifran.org.uk/

I became a founder as a dedication to a four legged companion who accompanied me on so many expeditions to the hills.

I last visited the valley in 2007 and thought  that now was the time for another look.  Thousands of native trees have been planted, faithful to the pollen samples found in peat cores, evidence of those growing on the site in the wild-wood times.

The valley 2007

Even after a few years the view has changed as the trees colonise the slopes and the wild flowers return to the undisturbed valley bottom.

The valley 2013

Rosebay Willow Herb

The path was alive with butterflies and moths though still fewer bees than one would have liked to see.   Rosebay willow-herb, the fire weed, is so common it’s usually overlooked but great stands of it in full bloom made a tremendous foreground to the brooding slopes of the hills. Tormentil carpeted the path and asphodel, lousewort and meadowsweet grew in clumps along stream’s edge.

Above me the buzzards circled, their “pee-you” cries sounding elemental and ancient.

Bog Asphodel

Six years is not long in the span of time in a wood-land, but already the faster growing birch, hazel and rowan are looking mature.  

Filberts

The hazel bushes had filberts as one would expect as August  20th  is St Philbert's day. 

They will be followed over the years by  larch, alder, ash and oak.
I won’t live to see the return of the mature woodland but my grandchildren may and, certainly, my great- grandchildren will.  (d.v.)

The passage of the years was emphasised as I reached the head of the valley, gouged by glaciers long before even the Stone Age hunter came.  The steep rise to the source of the Carrifran Burn, is aptly name Raven Craig and, between that and its neighbour, Priest's Craig, lies Priest's Gill where a tributary of the burn cascades over a waterfall. 

Ravens craig & Priest's Craig

The valley from Ravens Craig 2007

Priest's Gill

   In winter, six years ago I climbed it to photograph the frozen waterfall.   Today, in the summer heat, I thought better of it, consoling myself that I wasn’t properly equipped but really wondering if I could still manage it.   Yes, I’m sure I can.   I’ll organise another trip…..soon.

Frozen waterfall 2007

 As I drove away from Carrifran, the contrast of the biodiversity and richness of the wildwood project, even at this early stage, with the surrounding hills was profound.

Hundreds, indeed thousands, of years of agriculture have changed our land so greatly that what  we have come to think of as natural, the rolling hills and moors, are ecological deserts with their sheep-bitten turf and  monoculture forests.     Hopefully, there might be a balance where the subsidies and tax advantages bestowed on sheep farmers and foresters could be applied to longer term  projects that would re-establish at least some of  great temperate forest that once covered our country. 
  Much is made, and rightly so, of preserving the rainforests with their diversity of flora and fauna, but it is sometimes forgotten that much our own forests were destroyed hundreds of years ago to be replaced by now largely redundant sheep whose existence is supported by the taxpayer. So embedded is the the sheep in our politics that the Lord Chancellor sits on the Woolsack!
 Sheep were a mainstay of the economy from the early middle ages onwards but maybe now we should be thinking again.