Here in the glen its a day of mist which keeps coming and going there is a light wind blowing which keeps it on the move eventually it will break up completely I think leaving a clear day but for the moment its drifting in and out one minute you can see barely a hundred yards the next you can see for miles.
At first glance this seems a desolate place but not so, much has taken place here in the past some long ago some fairly recent but time does not matter much in these places.
This has been a deer forest for many many years but it has not always looked as it does today , much of the lower slopes are now covered in Sitka Spruce a fairly recent addition but
at least here its not blanket planting like in many places and deer can still get down to the low ground in hard weather.
In the glen bottom there are still remnants of the ancient alder forest and the remains of an old charcoal kiln can be clearly seen , charcoal was much in demand at the time of the
industrial revolution charcoal was needed to power the blast furnaces oak apparently being the best for that purpose, charcoal from alder was much in demand for the making of
gunpowder hence why much of this alder forest had been cleared and the remaining charcoal kiln probably one of many that had occupied the area at that time.
The mist blows out leaving the opposite hillside clear and one can clearly see a straight line of grassy marks among the heather as I said this has been a deer forest for a long time
but back in the 1930s they also shot driven Grouse here and what we are seeing is where a line of butts had been , back then in August and September this glen would have echoed to the sound of gunfire.
I have done my fair share of loading on the Grouse Moors but these must be one of the steepest lines of Grouse butts I have ever encountered ,baring in mind there were no ATVs
in those days there may have been a Garron (pony) to take some of the gear up but it would have been a hard stiff climb for even the fittest of loaders with two guns and a couple of hundred cartridges and what ever else his guest might have asked him to carry for him, Phew! I'm sweating merely thinking of it.
All a long the glen bottom by the burn side and also on the banks of some the feeder burns one can see ruins these are the remains of sheilings summer dwellings where the woman and children would come and tend their cattle while the men folk would stay at home on the croft and look after the crops oats and potatoes in the main.
One burn now under the canopy of Sitka Spruce is called the whisky burn one could still see where the still sat though the worm was long gone or at least you could when I was last there which I suppose must be thirty years a go.
When I first started as a young keeper this deer forest was owned by the same family as I was working for though I must have been there at least ten years maybe more before I ever set eyes on this place, I did meet the stalker from here as he came to some of the low ground shoots, he told me that he knew my father as they originated from the same
area they were not actually friends more what he described as nodding acquaintances as he was a little older than my father but they moved in the same circles as young men.
High above us on the ridge there is an old stone shelter I know where it is but you can't see it from here it was a deer watchers shelter this has been a deer forest for a long time
but not always stalking in the seventeen hundreds and early eighteen hundreds deer were hunted by hounds and finished of with a shot at close range when brought to bay
stalking as such not becoming popular until the later part of the 1800s the deer watchers job was to watch for deer attempting to break out of the main hunting area which they
would try to do particularly once the rut started and they were looking for hinds the watcher would attempt to turn them back into main hunting area using the wind when ever possible he would also be able to inform the forester the equivalent of the modern day stalker of the whereabouts of a suitable stag for hunting, I imagine there were several of these watchers employed as it would have been impossible for one man to carry out the job but I know of no other watchers shelters.
Being a deer watcher would have been a pretty thankless task I would imagine.
The fiery cross would have been carried through this glen in 1745 I would imagine as at that time this would have been the main thoroughfare south the present road not being built until 1769 to provide easy access for the army to quell those troublesome Scots.
The fiery cross was a cross not an upright cross but a cross like a St. Andrews cross made from a couple of sticks sometimes set alight but more often charred and dipped in blood
and carried by a runner through the Highlands to rally the clans to a cause in this case the Jacobite cause. .
My Kinsmen were not from these parts but from considerably further north but like those here and elsewhere they rallied to the call they would shed their blood at Falkirk
and by cut to ribbons at Culloden.
Some will no doubt get the idea that this is an anti English rant far from it this rebellion was a Civil War and I like many others would have ancestors that fought on both sides
but the truth is you had no choice but follow your clan chief if you were a clansman if you were a lowlander your local gentry, which ever side they were on that was also your lot
like it or not.
This glen was also a drove road that during the 1700 and 1800s right up to around the start of WW1 cattle were driven on foot from the Western Islands to the big cattle markets
of which Falkirk was one all of those from arriving in Oban from the islands would pass through this glen.
As a young keeper I had the good fortune to meet an old keeper by the name of Sandy Lockhart a real character and worthy of a write up all of his own Sandy was an old man when I met him I'm not sure just how old but like many keepers he was past retiring age but just kept on working ,Sandy had not always been a keeper as a young man he had been one of the very last cattle drovers to walk cattle from Oban to Falkirk cattle market and past through this glen on many occasions.
Sandy has been gone these past forty years and more but I think of him often and when I do it always brings a smile to my lips, they just don't make them like that any more.
Near the head of the glen there is an old ruined building an old drovers Inn apparently, Sandy liked a drink but I don't think he ever got one here as I think it would have been a ruin even in his time.
As we arrive above the old shooting lodge ,no longer owned by the estate its now a private house we are standing in a group of mature larch trees there are younger trees below us around the lodge mostly Douglas Fir and some Norway Spruce but these Larches are much older,among the trees just thirty yards or so from the path a some ruins I can make out the remains of eight buildings there may have been more a Clachan what most of you would probably call a hamlet, I wonder what these people did what there lives were like
what tales they could tell.
The wind blows the mist in again and the lodge below disappears I can see nothing but the larch trees that surround me, my father was a keeper for most of his life but he started
his working life in farming and he also spent some time in forestry I only learned not so many years ago that my father as a young man was one of the squad that planted these Larch trees fancifully I know but maybe just maybe the one I am standing beside now.
A desolate place I think not there are signs of life all around us.
Hush! I think I hear them whispering on the wind ,listen carefully perhaps you will hear them too.
At first glance this seems a desolate place but not so, much has taken place here in the past some long ago some fairly recent but time does not matter much in these places.
This has been a deer forest for many many years but it has not always looked as it does today , much of the lower slopes are now covered in Sitka Spruce a fairly recent addition but
at least here its not blanket planting like in many places and deer can still get down to the low ground in hard weather.
In the glen bottom there are still remnants of the ancient alder forest and the remains of an old charcoal kiln can be clearly seen , charcoal was much in demand at the time of the
industrial revolution charcoal was needed to power the blast furnaces oak apparently being the best for that purpose, charcoal from alder was much in demand for the making of
gunpowder hence why much of this alder forest had been cleared and the remaining charcoal kiln probably one of many that had occupied the area at that time.
The mist blows out leaving the opposite hillside clear and one can clearly see a straight line of grassy marks among the heather as I said this has been a deer forest for a long time
but back in the 1930s they also shot driven Grouse here and what we are seeing is where a line of butts had been , back then in August and September this glen would have echoed to the sound of gunfire.
I have done my fair share of loading on the Grouse Moors but these must be one of the steepest lines of Grouse butts I have ever encountered ,baring in mind there were no ATVs
in those days there may have been a Garron (pony) to take some of the gear up but it would have been a hard stiff climb for even the fittest of loaders with two guns and a couple of hundred cartridges and what ever else his guest might have asked him to carry for him, Phew! I'm sweating merely thinking of it.
All a long the glen bottom by the burn side and also on the banks of some the feeder burns one can see ruins these are the remains of sheilings summer dwellings where the woman and children would come and tend their cattle while the men folk would stay at home on the croft and look after the crops oats and potatoes in the main.
One burn now under the canopy of Sitka Spruce is called the whisky burn one could still see where the still sat though the worm was long gone or at least you could when I was last there which I suppose must be thirty years a go.
When I first started as a young keeper this deer forest was owned by the same family as I was working for though I must have been there at least ten years maybe more before I ever set eyes on this place, I did meet the stalker from here as he came to some of the low ground shoots, he told me that he knew my father as they originated from the same
area they were not actually friends more what he described as nodding acquaintances as he was a little older than my father but they moved in the same circles as young men.
High above us on the ridge there is an old stone shelter I know where it is but you can't see it from here it was a deer watchers shelter this has been a deer forest for a long time
but not always stalking in the seventeen hundreds and early eighteen hundreds deer were hunted by hounds and finished of with a shot at close range when brought to bay
stalking as such not becoming popular until the later part of the 1800s the deer watchers job was to watch for deer attempting to break out of the main hunting area which they
would try to do particularly once the rut started and they were looking for hinds the watcher would attempt to turn them back into main hunting area using the wind when ever possible he would also be able to inform the forester the equivalent of the modern day stalker of the whereabouts of a suitable stag for hunting, I imagine there were several of these watchers employed as it would have been impossible for one man to carry out the job but I know of no other watchers shelters.
Being a deer watcher would have been a pretty thankless task I would imagine.
The fiery cross would have been carried through this glen in 1745 I would imagine as at that time this would have been the main thoroughfare south the present road not being built until 1769 to provide easy access for the army to quell those troublesome Scots.
The fiery cross was a cross not an upright cross but a cross like a St. Andrews cross made from a couple of sticks sometimes set alight but more often charred and dipped in blood
and carried by a runner through the Highlands to rally the clans to a cause in this case the Jacobite cause. .
My Kinsmen were not from these parts but from considerably further north but like those here and elsewhere they rallied to the call they would shed their blood at Falkirk
and by cut to ribbons at Culloden.
Some will no doubt get the idea that this is an anti English rant far from it this rebellion was a Civil War and I like many others would have ancestors that fought on both sides
but the truth is you had no choice but follow your clan chief if you were a clansman if you were a lowlander your local gentry, which ever side they were on that was also your lot
like it or not.
This glen was also a drove road that during the 1700 and 1800s right up to around the start of WW1 cattle were driven on foot from the Western Islands to the big cattle markets
of which Falkirk was one all of those from arriving in Oban from the islands would pass through this glen.
As a young keeper I had the good fortune to meet an old keeper by the name of Sandy Lockhart a real character and worthy of a write up all of his own Sandy was an old man when I met him I'm not sure just how old but like many keepers he was past retiring age but just kept on working ,Sandy had not always been a keeper as a young man he had been one of the very last cattle drovers to walk cattle from Oban to Falkirk cattle market and past through this glen on many occasions.
Sandy has been gone these past forty years and more but I think of him often and when I do it always brings a smile to my lips, they just don't make them like that any more.
Near the head of the glen there is an old ruined building an old drovers Inn apparently, Sandy liked a drink but I don't think he ever got one here as I think it would have been a ruin even in his time.
As we arrive above the old shooting lodge ,no longer owned by the estate its now a private house we are standing in a group of mature larch trees there are younger trees below us around the lodge mostly Douglas Fir and some Norway Spruce but these Larches are much older,among the trees just thirty yards or so from the path a some ruins I can make out the remains of eight buildings there may have been more a Clachan what most of you would probably call a hamlet, I wonder what these people did what there lives were like
what tales they could tell.
The wind blows the mist in again and the lodge below disappears I can see nothing but the larch trees that surround me, my father was a keeper for most of his life but he started
his working life in farming and he also spent some time in forestry I only learned not so many years ago that my father as a young man was one of the squad that planted these Larch trees fancifully I know but maybe just maybe the one I am standing beside now.
A desolate place I think not there are signs of life all around us.
Hush! I think I hear them whispering on the wind ,listen carefully perhaps you will hear them too.
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