Culbin and RoseIsle Forests circa 1932
The images are courtesy of the family of late George Dey. George took a great many photographs from early 1950s to after 2010 and a selection of his forestry images are shown here on the Forestry Memories web site. They have been also been grouped under ‘George Dey Forestry Collection’ in the groups box.
The 37 Culbin and RoseIsle Forests images were part of George Dey’s collection of glass lantern slides but it seems that they were taken by someone else as the initials RCS was written on the edge of many of the slides. Subsequent investigations and the chance find of an old partially complete photo album in the Newton Office has filled in many details not previous known. It is certain the RCS refers to R Cowell-Smith who was District officer in the area from 1932 -34 and who must have been interested in photography and maintaining photo albums on Roseisle as well as Culbin. The new information from the album has pin pointed the locations of some of the lantern slides and this will be shown in individual images in later Picture Numbers. As the slides were designed as a show sequence they are now in the attached PDF in this, the previous and subsequent Picture Numbers.
The slides shown in the attached PDF shows the results of planting marram grass on the more gentle slopes of dunes and sand plains, the use of transverse permeable wind barriers in steeper sand blow outs and also fencing and brush wood fencing on the sea front to act as wind permeable barriers (as per the initial diagram) to create a large stable sea front dune. At this point the use of thatching with brash and tree tops had not yet started most likely due to lack of transport and machine resources. The last few images are of successful tree planting on the gravel beds and fixed dunes in old Compt Nos 20, 26, 39, 85 and 97 which are mainly on the eastern edge of the Low Wood. (See old Cubin Map in Picture No 2552).