Forest Worker Hostel, Rannoch Forest 1959

Date Added: 16 November 2010 Contributor: Norman Davidson Year of Photo: 1959 Picture No: 688

Photograph courtesy of Duncan Menzies, Banchory.
The workers hostel at Bridge of Gaur, Rannoch Forest. When this was taken Duncan was a single forester, who finished training at Faskally Forester Training School in 1958 and posted to Kinloch Rannoch. After a year Duncan was put in charge of the newly opened forestry hostel (previously a manse) at Bridge of Gaur, Rannoch Forest. The hostel which had an extension added in 1961 could hold up to 17 individuals, mostly young single men from all walks of life but many from the labour exchange who were trying the forest worker life for a period and worked mainly in one of the gangs at the Barracks section of Rannoch Forest which at that time had a planting programme of 800 acres per year.

Many did not appreciate the splendid isolation or the work and left very shortly after arriving, sometimes the next day, whereas others for example Sandy Sandilands and Gordon Rae stepped on into Forester Training Schools and ended up as foresters and then managers.

Groups: Forestry Areas

1 Comment

Don't remember this as the hostel, the manse which turned into the forestry hostel would have been where this photo was taken from. The house in the photo is Tigh na linn and was occupied by Wullie Still a forest worker and his family.. I was brought up here and worked for the Commission in Rannoch from 1967 to 1970 before being transferred to Glenlivet. Comment left on 18 January 2017 at 09:40 by Colin Bain.

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