Glen Tarbert and Ariundle Forest Areas – Sunart Forest – Strontian Forest District
The map was recovered from shed at Newton that acted as a storage area for Forest Research who used the maps to locate forest and tree experiments in the field.
This map covers three periods in the history of Forestry Commission in Sunart Forest. The first acquisition in Sunart Forest as opposed to Glenhurich was in 1951 when almost 600ha was acquired from the Board of Agriculture for Scotland and consisted of a series of separate blocks all the way from Glen Tarbert westwards along Loch Sunart to the village of Salen. The three areas in Glen Tarbart known locally as Carnoch, Achnalea and Tarbert (from west to east) were planted mainly in the years 1952 to 1953. A small very visible rectangular field area in the Carnoch block opposite Carnoch Bridge was planted up in 1987. It was said that the forester who carried out the first planting was from Glenhurich who was W Clymont possibly assisted by W A (Alec) Lockhart. It seems that J C Watson did not take over until 1953/54 as forester at Sunart Forest.
The northern area on the map is Ariundle Forest, the land acquired in 1972 as former grazing area from Department of Agriculture and Fisheries Scotland (DAFS) and totalled over 230ha. The area surrounded the Ariundle Oakwood NNR and was a bit controversial at the time with concerns of conifers reseeding into the long studied oak wood. A Scots pine buffer was planted around pert of the NNR edge. A well made track or cart road within Ariundle was formed to service the long closed lead mines much further up the glen. Much of the northern area was ploughed by Jock Banks on his Fiat 100 tractor with mounted tine. The southern area next to the Strontian River was very wet with areas of deep peat but plough driver and machines not recalled. The whole area was cross drained by Donny Junor and Dougie Kennedy? using a large Parkgate Humpy draining plough. Tree planting was done by the Sunart squad from Salen and Acharacle area between 1973 and 1975. The writer, newly transferred from Leanachan Forest, recalls being short of Sitka spruce allocation at the time and trying fit in with a species plan that had been drawn up the previous year.
Note the large area annotated as Compartments 230-300 which was a very recent acquisition, Drimantorran, again from the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries Scotland in 1981 about the time of the production of the map drawing. Over the following years the plantable areas were planted up by Strontian Forest District staff.
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Groups: Maps of Forest and Woodland Areas, Sunart Ardgour and Morven