Lorne Forest District Map – Former Barcaldine and Glencoe Forest Areas updated to 1991 – Map 7 Barcaldine East
The map was recovered from a shed at Newton Nursery which acted as a storage area for Forest Research who used the maps to locate forest and tree experiments in the field.
The west side of this map features the administrative core of the original Barcaldine Forest that existed from its inception in 1925 through to 1985 when it was, along with other local forests, amalgamated into the new management unit of Lorne Forest District. Much of this side of the forest was planted in the very early days and in compartment 1033 can be noted a small remnant pocket of Norway spruce planted in 1926. Much of the rest of this area had grown a mature crop of timber by the 1970s and 1980s and thus felled and replanted creating a very mixed aged forest. Sitka spruce dominates but there are significant areas of Norway spruce, larch, Lodgepole pine and some broadleaves and Noble fir.
The compartment sequence runs from 1001 to 1305 in these two maps of the Barcaldine main area the separate forests areas prompting the cartographers and surveyors to use a new sequence and jumping from 1100 to 1200 and also to 1300 even though all the sequence numbers had not been allocated. The survey date is not recorded but thought to have taken place around 1980 but updated up to 1991. Note the two small portions of land (part of compartment 1141) isolated out in the east of this map around the burn named Eas- na-h-Airigh Fuaranaich which would indicate that land in this area was originally purchased by the Forestry Commission and large areas subsequently sold on but with some boundary anomalies that failed to be included included.
Keith Miller, former Forest District Manage for Lorne provides more detail. “Barcaldine is an interesting forest and was acquired by Forestry Commission in its early days (around mid 1920s, I think). It was a very extensive acquisition of a large mixed estate which was struggling with viability in the hard times after WW1. There were a number of 19th Century woodlands already established around Barcaldine House and on the estate’s outlying land and some quite extensive coastal native woodlands, where the main thrust of Forestry Commission’s input at Barcaldine was to build on these woodlands and carry out 'infill'.
Some of the outlying land was sold on to sporting estates and never planted up and then other hill land areas adjacent were acquired subsequently, such as the Loch Etive side woods at Barrs and Cadderlie in the 60's (Map 9). I think these later acquisitions were mainly on much poorer land compared to the main Barcaldine Forest and with much lower timber production potential and troublesome to establish too, with access problems and recurrent sheep/deer encroachments etc.
The main admin and residential centre for Barcaldine Forest was on the low land just south of Barcaldine House (which I don't think we ever acquired) in and around compartment 1082 (partially on mid left side of this Map No 8) and collectively known as Achanreir. This was the main Forest centre where we had several Forest Worker Holdings, Foresters’ houses, the main Forest Office and a substantial depot, engineering workshops etc., along with about 20 modern houses built at Achanreir which were mostly occupied by workers for Forestry Commission and a key residential investment for the Barcaldine Alginate Factory which was set up after WW2, adjacent to the main Forest Worker Holdings.
More information and names would be very welcome - please see large image link below.