Forest Record of Ordiequish Forest, Morayshire
Record Book courtesy of Forestry Commission Moray and Aberdeenshire Forest District, Huntly.
This is one of a few Forest Record Books that have survived since this system of recording the details of the forest work in each new forest was changed after the early 1950s. Two copies of the book were maintained one at the forest and the other by the District Officer but in reality both were maintained by the District Office as it was only they who had a typist. It is likely the forester had to provide a written summary for the DO to work off.
The hard back cover had a sophisticated and durable locking system to retain the loose leaf pages as they were added when each year’s work was completed. The pages came in several categories R3 – Staff Record; R4 – Annual summary of Operations; R6 Silvicultural Notes by Year; R7 – Plantation History. Looking over the forms and also the print run details on their bottom edge this system of recording work was only initiated in 1935 and ended circa 1953. No doubt these forms were themselves summarised by Division, Country and Nationally. The form R1 still survives today as the annual planting record and always had its own folder.
The Divisional Officers covering this part of the Conservancy are named in the Record as J F Annand 1927, R G Forbes 1933, H M Steven 1937, F Scott 1938 and Acting Div Officer L A Newton 1939 which ends the record except for a note on the following page that F W Oliver was Conservator from May 1947.
The District Officers named are R C Smith 1933, A Warren 1935, I J Stewart 1939 - 46 when the record ends except for an additional note to indicate J A M Kennedy was posted there in Nov 1946. It would appear that several District Officer names are missing from the early years.
The Foresters/Foremen are listed as W Mackay 1929, F M Mitchell 1935, A Grant 1939 – 1946 when a note indicates that E McLeod was acting as temp forester in 1947 while A Grant was ill.
The forest operations record and history describes an early start to quite a large planting and protection programme with 80 acres the first year 1929, rising up to levels of 200 acres and less until 1942 when all of the land reserve had been planted. Ploughing is described as taking place on the harder heath areas but as the planting progressed into the sand dune areas planting with marram grass and use of ‘barn sweepings’ along with some light thatching required to be done before the trees were notched in. Towards the latter years thatching with branches from thinning operations took place whenever they had a tracked tractor to haul the material to the sand dune sites.
There is mention of sales of land areas to the Air Ministry and that significant areas were felled by TSD in 1942 (for pit wood) and again by HGTPD in 1942.
Groups: Forestry Areas, Forestry Records, Booklets and Reports, Northeast Scotland