Sawmill working - Ballogie Estate -1953 windblow
Photograph courtesy of Forestry Commission, Moray and Aberdeenshire Forest District. A1579
Stunning image of a mobile sawmill working on the edge of the South Deeside road in the middle of a devastated pine forest. This aerial photograph may have been taken by Forest Research or Survey personnel pulled into help quantify the scale of the destruction by using photographs from aircraft.
The location is given as 595 980 and places it on the minor public road B993 just west of the Potarch Bridge. Almost certainly this is a James Jones mobile sawmill which features in a number of other photographs on this site and which was manned by men from the Jonesville encampment nearby. Other images show the parts of the mill being brought in.
The tracks on the forest floor show the routes the tractors hauling the processed trees are taking and indeed a wheeled tractor and a tracked machine can be seen to the right of the sawmill. In this area all the trees have been sned out and cut off the stumps whereas at the top of the photograph they are still on the stump to keep them as fresh as possible until needed for the mill. Just above the mill are a couple of what looks like caravans parked close together with a cylindrical tank behind. The ‘caravans’ have an unusual shape but could they be accommodation units? Any suggestions?
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Groups: Forestry Areas, Forestry in Action, Gale 1953, Northeast Scotland , Sawmills, pulp mills, chipboard mills