Forestry Memories

Glentress Forest Camp sketch 1955

Glentress Forest Camp sketch 1955

Date Added: 26 April 2018 Contributor: Norman Davidson Year of Photo: 1955 Picture No: 4077

The image is courtesy of James Ross Deacon whose brother Thomas drew the online of the camp as around 1955. This was two years following the departure of the Foresters School and just before the building of the forester’s new house in 1957 on the site of the large double hut student accommodation above House No 3.

Thomas has depicted the different building structures to show those that were Corrugated Iron Huts, Nissan Huts and Air Raid shelters.

About this time Forest Worker House No 3 was occupied by forestry worker William Brown and family, No 2 by the Deacon family and No 1 by James Macdonald (Forester) and family before they moved into the new forester’s house as mentioned above.

The black building in the square above the 'cook house' is shown as a Nissan hut. This position was formerly occupied by the wooden clad cooks accommodation. Has that been moved to and become the 'cook house'? Who used the cook house?

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Groups: Buildings in Forests, Forestry Areas

2 Comments

Above cookhouse is the wooden building which was accommodation for cooking staff, Thomas should maybe have coloured it brown? The cookhouse inside had very large array of gas cookers and sinks, on drawing at far end is open space this was for rubbish bins had 2 large sliding doors etc? The Nissen hut in question was for storage of food and preperation for the students. Also to the right of the large garage in drawing was the petrol pump which was still in use into the 1970's. Comment left on 28 April 2018 at 16:50 by James Ross Deacon
My father James (Jimmy)Deacon was a ganger at Glentress and was in the Forestry Commission for 49 years which included his 1939/1945 war service. His work at Glentress where he lived in number two, then one FWH (Forestry Workers Houses), from 1954/55 till 1976 approx when he moved to Peebles. In his job throughout the years he worked in the nursery at Glentress putting up fences, planted on the hills and was in charge of these various work sites. Later he looked after the Christmas Tree sales, also with advent of the power saws was in charge of the filling of the various fuel containers for the chainsaw operators, he also had to go with the various lorry drivers to make sure they loaded the various types of saw logs and pulp then give them the conveyance notes for the timber sawmills. Comment left on 28 April 2018 at 17:26 by James Ross Deacon
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