PRIVATE KEEP OUT, NO PUBLIC RIGHT OF WAY, PRIVATE PROPERTY, NO PUBLIC ACCESS. It is difficult to walk for long in the English countryside before some form of ‘Private – Keep Out’ sign is encountered. There are many different variations of these signs … some are visually and verbally aggressive, others attempt to be more courteous or diplomatic in their bid to keep the public away, and yet others allude to ‘good’ that the landowner is doing that will be undone by members of the public accessing the land.
Sometimes these signs declare an intended outcome for the would-be trespasser (prosecution, being charged by a dangerous animal, attack by aggressive guard dogs) at other times the threat is carried in the simple, bald statement itself: PRIVATE KEEP OUT. The signs can take many physical forms—homemade and misspelt, mass-produced plastic, polished and site-specific—but their content is often capitalised and lacking in punctuation.
Etymologically, something private (from the Latin privatus) is something ‘set apart’, set apart from that which is public, of the people. The act of defining this thing set apart is an act of raising boundaries, an act of dividing. These signs are a stand-in for the landowner themselves … they are the landowner’s proxy, sited around the perimeter of a property alerting the passer-by that they should not cross a boundary. Sometimes there is a physical boundary (a barbed wire fence, a hedge or a wall for example) to back up the voice of these signs, in other instances the signs themselves demarcate the boundary line as the landscape is divided. Perhaps the signs reflect an owner’s detachment from the land, in buying land maybe they believe they are buying privacy.
Maybe these signs are a symptom of the nation’s detachment from the countryside: people no longer know how they should behave in rural areas; fires are started; crops are trampled; dogs are let off leads, bothering wildlife and/or livestock; gates are left open; rubbish is dumped. The Countryside Code is no longer widely taught and if it is, it is not well remembered.
Currently in England access to nature is a hot topic and the Right to Roam movement is gaining followers, according to their figures 92% of England is out of bounds to the public (due to ancient laws of ownership). But the organisation wishes to align things more to the Scottish model or those in Scandinavian countries, and with it, bring in an Outdoor Access Code to ensure that those roaming act responsibly. All good stuff, but while I am interested in the politics of these signs I’m just as interested in the language and aesthetics of land ownership and the dynamics of what this does to the countryside in terms of spatial perception.
I’ve just released my first track in response to Morandi’s 1954 still life held in the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts collection. You can find it on my Bandcamp page. My intention is to add tracks to this album over time, as I re-visit the painting and/or my ideas around its ‘sound’.
Much of my thinking so far about creating a soundwork for Giorgio Morandi’s 1954 still life painting has been in my head or in written form. I did one or two early outline drawings to help me think more about the arrangement of objects in the picture space but I soon felt that I needed to try notating the painting, to begin to bring together the different things that I was thinking about.
My first attempt is much too literal really although it does give some of the atmosphere I am feeling needs to be present. Certainly particular elements of the painting were becoming decided upon … and it was feeling right that each element has its own sound, like instruments in an orchestra performing a piece of music. I was perhaps too distracted by the colours though and felt a shift to a simpler palette might be useful for now. It was a start.
I also wasn’t happy with the proportions of the first notation sketch … it was too similar to the painting, so this next sketch (although you can’t see it here) is wider/longer to emphasise the duration of sound. The packets/tins have become a brief barcode of presence and the ceramic pot a more rounded, resonant element. Morandi’s signature is represented by the red strip … I’m wondering about having a short piece of spoken Italian for this, playing with the way the word-name ‘Morandi’ intrudes into this otherwise text-free environment.
The shadows between the objects will be reasonably emphatic whilst the shadow drifting off to the right will be a breathy overlay. The gold frame ought to be there too, maybe this is represented by a sounded entry point to the work? The background/foreground elements are likely to be fundamental parts but how can they exist sonically at the same time? The foreground feels like it needs to be stronger than the background but they are (to me) of very similar timbre.
I’ve started to play around with sounds but nothing is feeling quite right at the moment. Maybe I need to be a bit more adventurous with how I interpret the painting’s elements. Maybe I need to try a few more notations first.
In the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich there is a 1954 still life by Giorgio Morandi [Accession Number: RLS 22]. In September last year I visited the gallery and spent a while with this painting and was inspired to start thinking about making a soundwork responding to it. The idea very gently simmered in the background of my mind for several months until I began to think about it with increased focus a few weeks ago. I borrowed a book about Morandi* and last week I re-visited the painting and spent an hour thinking about it, trying to relax into its space, into its presence.
When I visited in September I became very fixed on the illusion that the still life objects sit in a landscape, the dividing of the background is a horizon line and, it seemed to me, this was a marine horizon as the uncertainty of the brushed divide ripples suggesting rougher conditions out at sea. This suggestion of ‘landscape’ has been raised by others writing about Morandi’s still-lifes. Maybe it is the contrarian in me, but as I’ve come back to it I want to ignore this urge to describe it as a landscape and see it simply as the contrast between the horizontal and vertical planes in Morandi’s studio set up. Why? A friend drew my attention to a quote by Morandi along the lines of, “There is nothing more surreal, nothing more abstract than reality.” And there, a couple of days later, the same quote surfaced several times in the book I have borrrowed … “Nulla é piu astratto del mondo visibile.” It is this everyday magic that I will focus on.
To construct a soundwork of a painting is clearly a conceit, the painting is sonically silent (well, to the human ear at least!); the sound will be a personal response. Fairly early on in my thinking I realised that this conceit could take several forms. Do I create a soundwork that deals with the painting as an object in the gallery space both in terms of ambient gallery sounds and how the paintings holds itself on that particular wall, in the company that it keeps with other collected objects? Or is it more about gut-feeling … how the painting makes me feel, what I think of, what the colour palette (muted browns, greys, ochres) says to me? Or maybe, the structure of the painting dictates the sound … the background and foreground suggest drones whilst the forms on the table punctuate this with a sort of dot, dot, dash? Or getting closer into the painting the glossy, huffed, gauzy brushwork might shape the sound. Or maybe it is a combination of some or all of the above?
I’ve made notes when I’ve visited RLS 22 (in person or digital reproduction), and while reading the Prestel book. I don’t want to consider the painting in complete isolation, I want to bring the artist further into the picture (excuse the pun). I also created some diagrams of the painting, to consider how the objects sit in the frame, how the background and foreground divide up the space, and how the shadows behave. From a distance there is a solidity to the objects in their space but upon closer inspection things drift apart. The two packets appear a little uncertain at any distance but the white ceramic pot initially has a certainty about it, it pushes forward with glazed confidence. But close up things unravel … the shadows between the objects jump forward; the brushwork across the painting is frequently breathy and transparent, with primed canvas showing in places and a hint of pencil line; the application of the paint and the shapes are faltering, trembling. The painter is thicker in some areas and looking across the painting’s surface ridges and ripples can be seen but even here the viewer isn’t left completely confident of the surface (an Auerbach this is not!).
I spent time considering the objects: the white pot is almost certainly glazed white, ceramic and without a lid but the other two objects were less obvious to me. I thought maybe they were card packets but the left-hand object appears to have a removable lid and looks like it might not be card. The middle object is much less clear almost absent if you ignore the bracketing shadow. Looking about online at photographs of Morandi’s studio leads me to believe that both of the rectangular forms could be tins. How will this information contribute to the soundwork? And the shadows, those between the objects are powerful, resisting black but deep, yet the cast shadows are more gentle … they do visually anchor the huddle of objects to the right-hand side of the picture space but they are like bonfire smoke, or fibres maybe … a gentle tethering.
Whilst the trembling brushwork of the painting makes the viewer doubt the solidity of the objects and question the reassuring presence of a figure/ground divide, what does seem more solid is what the painting does to time. Time becomes slowed … paused. Maybe this is reflected in the English term ‘still life’ (not the Italian ‘natura morta’) … the objects are not dead, they flicker, buzz and tremble with life yet somehow there is stillness … a push and pull between ‘reality’ and imagining remains in the stillness of the watching eye.
And then there is the matter of Morandi’s signature, very boldly placed at the centre bottom of the painting yet slightly truncated by the frame (a gilt one with simple moulding and rich brown sides). It doesn’t impose but it is certainly present … perhaps it reminds the viewer that despite the trembling application of paint the artist retains a mastery of space, light, colour and form. A footnote?
I’ve been intending to write this post for about six weeks but what with heading off on holiday (very enjoyable, thank you for asking) 36 hours after my final visit for the project, then being busy on another project and then enjoying the delights of covid, time has flown … but here we are now! This is a mix of reflection, summary and thank yous.
Simply put, it’s been a wonderful project to work on … just too short! The team at Crichton Carbon Centre (CCC) are doing great work and are really supportive of the work that art can do in the context of environmental awareness and landscape restoration. They’re also friendly and fun bunch so that all helps! A special mention must go to Kerry Morrison, who is the art project officer at CCC, for her help and advice during all aspects of the project … she was able to ensure the project remained on track without pressuring me (depsite the tight timescales). Thank you all! I’d also like to add a nod of thanks to Kenny from Galloway Fisheries Trust for sharing his enthusiasm and knowledge of things aquatic and Ted Leeming for his input on local historical matters and forestry dynamics.
My final trip to Dumfries & Galloway for the project was to help with the delivery of a Bog Banquet … the formal end of my project was also the end of CCC’s Peatland Connections (PC) project (as its funder Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership was also coming to an end); the work I produced during my residency formed part of this celebratory banquet. Curated by Kerry, the banquet was a lovely, imaginative, atmospheric celebration of PC and brought together around forty individuals who were directly involved in the project delivery or supported it in some way … I was delighted to be part of it. There were themed dishes, theme-appropriate table decorations, atmospheric lighting, short presentations on aspects of CCC work and interventions from current artist-in-residence Morag MacPherson.
Along with my soundwork played during the meal I also contributed a limited edition version of the soundwork notation for participants to take away with them and a set of ‘place names’ (with accompanying explanatory booklet) for the table. The place names weren’t those of the guests, there was no seating plan, instead they were place names from my project site; an enigmatic blend of lost-to-obscurity, toponymic literalness, accidental poetry and historic fact.
Bog Banquet place names ready to go
During the project (including commutes) I cycled over 470kms (290miles), walked a more modest 70kms (40miles) or so, took some lifts, caught a few buses and travelled on a lot of trains. Things would have been more convenient to do by car but, a) it wasn’t feasible for me, and b) it wasn’t in the spirit of the project as far as I was concerned … besides, even with a car there would have been several miles of walking/cycling to reach the project site on each visit. The remoteness of the site and the effort needed to get there was a big part of the appeal that the project had for me. Maybe there is an act of honouring these landscapes through exertion; in the case of the project this exertion was both physical and creative. One small regret is that I didn’t spend the night in the glen, I had hoped to camp out for at least one night but I think the pace of the project got the better of me on this count!
my hand-me-down Orbit ‘romany’ outside the 5 star Backhill of Bush bothy
My art practice has always focussed on landscape or sense of place, and hobbies of running, walking and cycling are all about enjoying being in the landscape. I have long been aware of the manifold threats to the environment, support a variety of environmental charities, and have a fascination for ecological concerns at both field and theoretical levels. Over twenty years ago, as I shifted my career from solely focussed in the production of artist’s books to residency/commission work, I worked on a project with Kent High Weald Project (KHWP) in the south of England. With the CCC residency it was great to get back to working with an organisation in the conservation, restoration, ecological research sector and I hope to find/create similar projects in the future (although I fear that they won’t be quite so gnarly!).
In a broad sense the site conformed to my expectations, which can be problematic as expectations are always keen to become preconceptions, influencing a response away from the specific. Generalities that are present in much of upland Britain were there, and in many ways this was a project about generalities (water, peat, forestry) … about factors that can be found in Wales, on Dartmoor, in Northumberland, etc.. And I knew all this (and more) from the project call-out and brief, so there was never any possibility of approaching the site with a completely open mind (an impossibility anyway as far as I’m concerned). But, in amongst generalities are always specificities, little nuggets of fascination around which the generalities can be made to orbit. The presence, methods and feedback from the ecological research of CCC became the lever with which to prise open the generalities of the site, along with a sprinkling of desk-based historical research. Links to most of the sources I used can be found below.
Spending concentrated time in the glen and with the research in mind it was very apparent that, despite the geographical remoteness, this is a peopled place. In some cases this peopling adds positive colour, in others it is in the signature of upheval. Although I’m familiar with the presence and processes of commercial forestry across upland Britain, I found the scale of operations here ratcheted up the brutality of the process … this of course was visually obvious, but became more important for the hidden impacts on peat and water quality rather than picturesque (although this latter is an area I would like to explore more (and had touched on in that KHWP work all those years ago)). The scale of the infrastructure also became more and more present to me, with a whole industry to facilitate the growth and removal of commercial tree crops, I found it impossible to overlook the insertions of feats of engineering into the terrain. I also became increasingly sensitive to how these commercial plantations gain a life of their own as they self-seed across vast areas of sensitive land, land that is otherwise protected or excluded from direct commercialisation. Land that is vital to human existence through biodiversity and carbon storage but, more crucially, land that should just be allowed to be(come) for no capitalistic quantifiable/measurable reason. It’s a complex issue to confront (much too complex to address here), there is much forward-thinking work being done within the forestry industry but this is frequently not manifesting at ground level (so far).
On a more positive note, I felt very lucky, privileged even, to be able to spend time getting to know the watercourses, bogs and hills of the site. To spend time by the running waters of these streams and letting my thoughts merge with their sounds and movements was most inspiring. Also, my brief forays onto Silver Flowe (patterned blanket bog system) were a delight and awe-inspiring in equal measure. From kneeling down exploring the rich flora and fauna of the bog’s surface, to carefully moving across the quaking surface, the place is a marvel … and is also a sign-post to what sites that CCC work on will become given time.
My final contribution for the residency took several forms, the core of which was a soundwork called FLOW : SAMPLE. The work consists of five pieces: FLOW, and the ‘samples’ of BLOCK, QUALITY, SOLID and SUPERFICIAL. When played in full FLOW is a sort of background piece, a continuum, that the other pieces can be played over. With more time I would have liked a live vocal aspect to the delivery of the work, but despite this not being possible I’m very pleased with the work of the project. The sounds can be found on my Bandcamp page here. Caution! If listening via headphones beware of some very loud sections. Enjoy!
the limited-edition notations being signed and editioned
Agnew, Andrew. The hereditary sheriffs of Galloway ; their “forebears” and friends, their courts and customs of their times, with notes of the early history, ecclesiastical legends, the baronage and place-names of the province. Edinburgh: D. Douglas, 1893.
Crockett, S.R. The Lilac Bonnet. PDF via S.R. Crockett Archive
____________. Men of the Moss Hags. PDF
____________. Raiderland. PDF
____________. The Raiders. PDF
____________. Rose of the Wilderness. PDF
____________. Silver Sand. PDF
Dick, Rev. CH. Highways and Byways in Galloway and Carrick. London: Macmillan & Co., 1919.
Donahue, Thomas, F. Renou-Wilson, C. Pschenyckyj, and M. Kelly-Quinn. “A Review of the Impact on Aquatic Communities of Inputs from Peatlands Drained for Peat Extraction.” Biology and Environment: Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 122B, No 3 (2022): 145-160. PDF
Edwards, Kevin J., Michael Ansell and Bridget A. Carter. “New Mesolithic Sites in Galloway, and their Importance as Indicators of Inland Penetration.” Transactions of Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society, 3, 58 (1983): 9-15.
Ferguson, A., Caroline Bradley, Robin Ade, Colin Roberts, Jackie Graham, and Paulo Prodöhl. “The Fall and Rise of Galloway and Carrick Trout.” Salmo Trutta, (2013): 10-13.
Galloway Fisheries Trust. Restoration of salmon in the upper River Dee (Kirkcudbrightshire). Newton Stuart: Galloway Fisheries Trust, 2020.
_____________________. Black Water of Dee fisheries and habitat study. Newton Stuart: Galloway Fisheries Trust, 2017.
Helliwell, Rachel, et al. Modelling the long-term response of stream water chemistry to atmospheric pollution and forestry practices in Galloway, SW Scotland (Dundee: James Hutton Institute, 2014). PDF
Jackson, Faye L., Robert J. Fryer, David M. Hannah, Colin P. Millar, Iain A. Malcolm. “A spatio-temporal statistical model of maximum daily river temperatures to inform the management of Scotland’s Atlantic salmon rivers under climate change.” Science of the Total Environment, 612 (2018): 1543–1558.
Kelly-Quinn, Mary, et al. Forestry and Surface Water Acidification. Dublin: University College Dublin, 2008. PDF
Kerr, B.W. “Quaternary Studies in Galloway – A Review.” Transactions of Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society, 3, 58 (1983): 1-8.
Learmonth, William. Kirkcudbrightshire and Wigtownshire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1920.
Marine Scotland. Scotland river temperature monitoring network (SRTMN). (2021)
______________. SUMMER 2018 RIVER TEMPERATURES. (2019)
McCormick, Andrew. Galloway: The Spell of its Hills and Glens. To which is added the Geology of the Merrick Region. Glasgow: John Smith & Sons, 1937.
McKerlie, Peter Handyside. Galloway in Ancient and Modern Times. Edinburgh: W Blackwood & Sons, 1891. PDF.
_______________________. History of the Lands and Their Owners in Galloway. Edinburgh: William Paterson, 1874. PDF.
Nisbet, TR, & CD Evans. Forestry and Surface Water Acidification. Farnham: Forest Research, 2014. PDF
O’Driscoll, Connie, Elvira de Eyto, Michael Rodgers, Mark O’Connor, Zaki-ul-Zaman Asam, and Liwen Xiao. “Diatom assemblages and their associated environmental factors in upland peat forest rivers.” Ecological Indicators, 18 (2012): 443-451.
Ordnance Survey. Sheet 77, Dalmellington and New Galloway: Galloway Forest Park. 1:50,000. Southampton: Ordnance Survey, 2016.
Prodöhl, Paulo A., Andrew Ferguson, Caroline R. Bradley, Robin Ade, Colin Roberts, E.J. Keay, Artur R. Costa, Rosaleen Hynes. “Impacts of acidification on brown trout Salmo trutta populations and the contribution of stocking to population recovery and genetic diversity.” Journal of Fish Biology. (2019): 1–24.
Scottish Natural Heritage. Dumfries and Galloway Landscape Assessment. Glasgow: Land Use Consultants, 1998.
Stables, S. Backhill o’ Bush Land Management Plan 2016-26. Edinburgh: Forest Enterprise Scotland, 2017.
Symson, Andrew. A Large Description of Galloway. Edinburgh: W&C Tait, 1823. PDF
looking south-east from the ridge between Corserine and Millfire with the project site behind me.
A slightly shorter trip this time and just one final site visit before the project ends in August. More time was spent on this trip planning the August event with Kerry, and developing my sound work, etc. for the event.
I set out fairly early on site visit day; a beautiful morning (although with a promise of rain showers later in the day) cycling along Galloway lanes and then onto the Southern Upland Way to reach the site by the first sample point. I had a look up into one of the forestry quarries where they extract stone to create the forest roads. Lewis from CCC and Kenny from GFT were about on site on this day too and I hoped to meet up with them at times during the day.
Heaped ‘borrowings’ from the hill to make the forestry roads.
I cycled on round to McWhann’s Stone to discover that it was likely a large lump (or two actually) of the bedrock granodiorite … I was wanting to find examples of this rock and was pleased to find some so early on in my visit! It is a beautiful surface when examined up close, especially with its cloaking of mosses and lichens, and a the stone made a perfect perch for a coffee stop.
The granodiorite and mosses of McWhann’s Stone.
Shortly after this I heard from Lewis and Kenny and arranged to meet them at their next sample point. In this watercourse, the lower reaches of Curnelloch Burn, the gravels had been scoured away and it was clear to see more granodiorite forming the stream bed (this time tinted rich brown through the peaty waters). We talked water acidity and geology and then parted to carry on our separate ways, them by pick-up truck and me by bike. I caught up with them a couple more times (as they had stopped to collect more samples and install a camera to record the changing water levels of the Cooran Lane) before I reached the bothy where I planned to have a bit of an early lunch and shelter from the rain squalls that were by now beginning to drift down from the Dungeon Hills.
I spent quite a while by the burn (Downies Burn) that runs beside the bothy, watching the play of light on the water’s surface, and listening and recording the tumult of the waters here. I’ll never grow tired of sitting and contemplating these upland streams … they are ever-changing and hypnotic in their movements and sounds. And whilst not always relaxing, they are certainly distracting.
Eventually heavier rain drove me inside the bothy. I find the bothy rather dispiriting and didn’t spend too long in there before I headed down to a slower section of burn where I recorded the gulping, glugging sounds of the filling, emptying, filling, emptying, filling, emptying, filling process of collecting a water sample. Soon after this Lewis and Kenny arrived and I stopped for lunch with them (thanks for the Starburst and huge Custard Creams!) … the talk of fDOMs and such like left me a bit bewildered but it was clear they were collecting some useful data. I bid them farewell as they headed off to the upper sample points and I cycled on slowly in their wake.
I stopped a few times to collect recordings from inside some of the established forestry plantations. A gentle swooshing in the tree tops persisted and this was punctuated by the alarm calls of small birds. It’s a strange environment … sounds are muffled and soft but there is also the harsh brittleness of brashings and lower branches that catch and scratch at the body.
At the next track junction I took the right turn to climb up towards the upper sample points. I had not been this way before so it would be good to see this section on my last visit. As I sheltered from a cloud burst Kenny and Lewis came back down the track in the pick-up and this gave me an opportunity to record the sound of vehicles moving on the rough forest track. I had also had the sound recorder strapped to my bike to record the jarring, juddering progress of cycling the tracks (this had been inspired by accidentally leaving my phone camera recording in the pocket of a pannier). All good material for my final soundwork!
I climbed all the way up as far as the track allowed me. The way terminating in a newly rebuilt turning circle … evidence that a higher area of trees was soon due for felling. Recent felling work below was clearly evidenced by the numerous trackside log stacks (and their accompanying signage).
A brief stop for refreshments and to record the wind in the tree tops and then it was time to begin heading back. The run down was much easier and the view across the glen, freshened up by the rain showers, was beautiful to behold (on the odd occasions I could lift my eyes from the track surface at least). I was feeling somewhat melancholic at the thought that my last site visit was coming to an end and so I prolonged my day with a turn down a side track that led me out to the middle of the glen’s floor. I stood on a small boulder, surrounded by young sitka spruce and watched as meadow pipits moved between perches (and some sort of finch I had never seen before … a common rosefinch my bird book has subsequently informed me … perched near the top of a dead tree).
This much further into the summer there were lots more flowers around and everything was much greener; the summer scents of bracken and meadowsweet and the brilliance of rosebay willowherb softened my departure from the site.
This visit concluded the on-site element of my artist’s residency with Crichton Carbon Centre. In coming posts I’ll add glimpses of ideas development for my contribution to the celebratory event in August.
stacked timber waiting to be transported out of the glen. Craigeazle is in the background.
The presences of forestry in the project site are vast, complex and contentious. The arguments regarding forestry become binary: for or against. Nations have long, long needed timber (for building, for paper, for fuel) and if you can grow your own then you are protected against the uncertainty of import. School history lessons about the Spanish Armada inform us that vast amounts of timber were required to build the ships that would defeat the Spanish. But slowly, Great Britain’s timber stocks decreased, accelerated by the thirst for fuel during the ‘industrial revolution’ of the 17 and 1800s, and then again by the demands of World War I. So much so that in 1919 the Forestry Commission was founded to address this deforestation and guarantee a domestic timber supply. In 2019 two new bodies responsible for forestry in Scotland were established, Forestry Land Scotland and Scottish Forestry. It is Forestry Land Scotland (FLS) who now own most (if not all) of the project site to pursue commercial forestry.
one of the many temporary warning signs that can be found in the commercial forest areas.
FLS Backhill o’ Bush block today totals just over 5,000 hectares, purchase of the land started in the 1940s and continued through to the late 60s, with tree planting commencing in the 1950s and continuing into the 1980s. Harvesting started in the 1990s. Backhill o’ Bush is part of Galloway Forest Park (which has over 125 million trees) which in turn is just one small part of a nationwide industry that covers about 8% of Scotland. Harvested timber is used in construction, paper making and as a biomass fuel and the timber produced reportedly contributes several hundred million pounds to the Scottish economy, when tourism’s contribution is included too. Commercial forestry is no longer solely concerned with timber production: a love of trees is ‘sold’ to the public for them to enjoy walking, cycling, picnicking, etc.. Despite the artificial arrangement of these forests, their no-nonsense infrastructure and their decreased potential as wildlife habitats, people flock to them in their thousands for a dose of ‘nature’ and some adventure. I have a love hate relationship with them.
excerpt from the Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 map showing ‘coniferous tree’ symbols, forestry track and fire breaks.
There is money in the trees though but it is all about scaling up, often individual harvested trees will be of poor quality and the investment needed to harvest them can almost make them worthless … but, with enough of the things small, localised anomalies can be overlooked and the wider profit wins out. It is important to note that commercial forestry practices have changed massively over the last forty years; a lot more thought is given to how and where new trees are planted, the talk is of ‘minimum intervention’ and healthy, productive and cared for land. But there is still plenty of room for improvement, the research goes on and the new thinking has to reach everyday working practices … should new trees be planted on (deep) peat, how high up on a hillside should trees be planted, how much of a problem is self-seeding on surrounding open ground? … and so, the questions go on.
Stepping away from the contentious for the moment, there is a whole language associated with forestry that has become for me a backdrop to any exploration of the project site. The language is urban, technical, technocratic perhaps, but also sometimes rooted in the history of arboriculture: areas of planting are described as blocks, stands or coupes; these areas are separated into yield classes; there are rotations and harvests of the crop; clear fell takes out the timber, clears the land; windthrow sends sections of plantations over like skittles, tearing the shallowing roots from their anchor in the often thin or unstable soil; and brash and severed trunks litter the land. There is also a host of acronyms and initialisms that pepper documents about the forestry here: FES, PAWS, LMP, FCS, BL, SAC, NNR, SSSI, UKBAP, FD, LISS, DAMS, UKFS, …
mounds of stone for use on forestry tracks, quarried from the hillside at the northern end of the project site. The Dungeon Hills are in the background.
Previously, these upland forestry plantations had been found to be problematic due to their ability to scavenge airborne anthropogenic pollution. With decreasing air pollution emissions this problem has waned, but it is now understood that commercial forestry can adversely alter the quality of surface water and surrounding watercourses. This is particularly the case at the project site where a ‘perfect storm’ of factors exacerbates the issue … the granite bedrock already heightens the acidity of the waters that percolate from below, and the peat, especially when in poor condition, also increases acidity (and turbidity). Forestry processes damage the soil … peat becomes eroded and degraded, drainage alters the flow of water off the land, sediment is released into burns, and trees planted (historically) too close to watercourses create areas of ‘riparian over shading’. All of this can lower the pH of the water (i.e. make it more acidic) and increase its temperature … both of these outcomes are harmful to biodiversity. Increasingly temperamental weather events mean that these upland watercourses have become much more erratic, their character is more flashy, and this only worsens the problems.
For many hundreds of years this glen would have had very little tree cover, sheep and deer grazing tending to keep tree growth in check. Before this, archaeological evidence from the Mesolithic and Neolithic period suggests a terrain of mixed vegetation including birch, hazel and pine trees … surely never at the scale and density of today’s commercial plantings though. Ainslie’s 1797 map of the area shows very little in the way of trees right across the Galloway Hills and other written histories certainly don’t portray these hills as tree-covered.
a Romantic vision surely Caspar David Friedrich would be proud of …
In the FLS visitor centre at Clatteringshaws a wall panel encourages visitors to “Hug a tree today, they’re doing a great job!” What the job of the tree is remains open to interpretation … is it the end products outlined elsewhere in the visitor centre (fuel, timber for construction, paper pulp)? That one is fairly straightforward although not without some criticism … is biomass really a ‘great job’ for a tree? Or is it the purported beauty of the mass of trees, are these man-made forests genuinely beautiful, are we being sold a particular vision, or do these trees tap into some more primaeval, sublime, human relationship with dark forests (places of danger, places of sanctuary)? But this ‘beauty’ argument is challenged when confronted with areas recently clearfelled or those prepared for new planting. Here the land is broken, torn, ripped up and really is like some of those images of First World War battlefields or war paintings by Paul Nash, it’s a dystopian kind of beauty.
ground prepared for new planting near the entrance to the project site
Or is the ‘job’ to create healthy habitats for wildlife? Well, the mix of trees is better now with the introduction of broadleaf planting in the last decade or two, but there still remain vast areas of dense conifer plantations that are thin pickings for most wild creatures and plants … and what happens to anything that makes its home in a plantation once that area is clearfelled? Also, don’t forget, the maxim ‘right tree, right place’ … but, sometimes a place just isn’t a place for a tree ((deep) peat for instance, is not where trees should be growing).
Yes, if we are talking about carbon capture and processing, trees are wonderful things but peat, when in good condition, is a phenomenal carbon store (even grassland is now known to have great carbon storage ability). The bottom line is, do the pros of trees (in the form of commercial plantations) outweigh the cons in this specific context?… The million dollar question … and yes, it probably does all come down to money eventually. Unfortunately.
information panel in the toilets at Clatteringshaws visitor centre
the rough forest track with Corserine in the background
The research, the site visits, the writing of these blog posts and all the thinking and notemaking in between are my way of getting to know a place … it can only ever be a partial knowledge and will be biased towards things that interest me and who I speak to but this is what makes us humans! In these recent blog posts I have offered a glimpse into the three main ingredients of the MAGIC model (mentioned in my first blog post for this project), along with ‘people’ who are implicitly present in the model and ‘toponyms’ which is an extension of people.* Plenty of other material has gone unremarked upon so far and I will touch upon some of these things in this post.
Through my work I am responding to the project site as a whole but with particular concern to the matter of water quality. To respond is to ‘pledge back’, to ‘promise in return’; through my work I make a promise to the place for, without the place, there would be no work. It is worth reiterating that this is not a traditionally beautiful landscape, it is not Picturesque, it would take some moving around (and deletion) of elements to fit within William Gilpin and Uvedale Price’s definition of the Picturesque. This is not a landscape for a biscuit tin or chocolate box. It is very much a contested and troubled landscape but it is really only us humans who care what it looks like, for all other species the concerns are for food, shelter and finding a mate but still these ends may be denied by one or more of the human activities of the place.
Working in places such as the project site, thinking about such places, really does make me question my place in the dynamic and what I am trying to do. But more, how we as humans fit in to the world. We are part of ‘nature’ but we seem to have created conceits (e.g. culture, science, …) to distance ourselves from ‘it’; maybe it helps to reinforce our ability to objectivise or maybe it provides a desensitisation for when we abuse the other occupants (sentient or not) of this planet. Big themes! but that’s what places like the project site do to us if we are given enough time to think about them. I can’t look at a place like this and try to make it look classically beautiful, my role surely is to make (or help) people question what they experience, it is necessary that we do not to take situations for granted.
My creative process (here) is extractive but in a way that does no permanent harm to the place, where the ‘drawing out’ is of accounts rather than materials. I extract observations, sounds, stories, smells, and so forth … gathering these things into my equivalent of the mounds of material beside the borrow pits. This material will be repurposed by me to create new ways through the site. The way I respond will also give a generous nod to the approaches and methodologies of the scientific work being carried out here, with particular attention given to the concept of ‘baseline’ and the broader acts of ‘sampling’ and ‘monitoring’. My intention is not to create a fixed ‘view’ of the landscape but to convey the complex dynamics of the project site, or perhaps I should say, the complex dynamics, the relations, which define the site. So much of this is about the invisible and/or inaudible, my work is to notice these things, to attend to them and lend them voice. Maybe I understand the project/site through the Baradian concept of intra-action, and my work is a response-ability to the churning, singing, droning, fizzing, tumbling, flowing complexity of the place.
The project site has a mix of habitats—not just the commercial conifer plantations—which include upland grass, broadleaf woodland, and blanket bog, so the wildlife I saw and heard was reasonably varied. Avifauna: I was fairly disappointed with the limited range of birdlife I witnessed but maybe I wasn’t looking hard enough! Cuckoos were very vocal on my first visits; I observed swallows feeding on Cooran Lane and their counterparts swifts high up on the ridges; I only saw a couple of red kites in passing (despite Galloway’s renown for this bird); there were larks and meadow pipits on the grassy hillsides; down on the woodland fringes I saw the usual small birds such as tits and finches; wagtails by the small streams; a few geese (pink-footed I think) and mallards. Apparently black-throated divers and black grouse may also be seen in the area. Imagine all this activity mapped out with the same level of attention given to human histories and activity … what an impenetrable landscape that would be.
The only mammals I saw were a small flock of goats up on the ridge below Millfire and a deer just below the ridge. Pine martens might venture this way but are not known to be resident currently, red squirrels may be here though I didn’t see any. Otters are also recorded here and have left their name in Otter Strand. Flora: in addition to all the trees that are to be expected in and around commercial plantations I saw plenty of flowers that I don’t get to see very often including: round-leaved and long-leaved sundew, lousewort, bog asphodel, bog bean, bog myrtle, orchids and bog cotton. Up on the hillsides around the water sources were tormentil, a type of saxifrage, blaeberry, thyme, sorrels and more.
saxifrage among grasses and mosses near one of the sources of the March Burn.
Although the waters of the project site are seen as ‘at risk’ there is life in them for the moment. I saw trout and minnows, there were plenty of mayflies and similar, golden-ringed dragonflies, caddis fly larvae, and the other macroinvertebrates you might expect, and things microscopic I’m sure! Silver Flowe is apparently also home to the rare azure hawker dragonfly … but I didn’t’t see one …
Beyond the wildlife, my conversations with staff from Crichton Carbon Centre and Galloway Fisheries Trust (and reading documents recommended by them) have resulted in many a random note in my notebooks: base cations, dry and occult depositions, soil water pathways, diatom assemblages, biota, macrophytes, phytobenthos, DOC, trophic diatom index, peat degradation, fluvial carbon, flocculate, adsorption, ombrotrophic, tiny tags, temperature stratification, flashy catchment, hydrological unit, … Some will find their way into the work produced and others will fall by the wayside it can never be a complete picture, such a thing would be pointless …
“Only six inches!”exclaimed Mein Herr. “We very soon got to six yards to the mile. Then we tried a hundred yards to the mile. And then came the grandest idea of all! We actually made a map of the country, on the scale of a mile to the mile!”
“Have you used it much?” I enquired.
“It has never been spread out, yet,” said Mein Herr: “the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well.” Lewis Carroll, The Complete Illustrated Works (New York: Grammercy Books, 1982), 727.
Despite its apparent remoteness the project site is busy with human association, human presence and the abuse of humans. Go back several hundred years … several thousand years … and this place was genuinely remote but even then human’s had a presence. A cairn on the west side of Cooran Lane is believed to be Neolithic and a find of Mesolithic flints suggest that people were moving along these glens several thousand years ago … maybe around the time the deeper peats were beginning to form? These may have been hunting trips or transit routes between the Ayrshire coast and the Solway Firth. In the last few hundred years evidence of human occupation and industry increased and is reflected in the various (agricultural) structures recorded on maps (and in the archives) and, sometimes indistinctly, on the ground: hay rees, shiels, corn kilns, sheep rees, etc.. A few drystone walls also still lie across the glen but are now slowly returning to the land. There are also several named dwellings, mostly now ruins, such as Low and High Cornarroch, Downie’s Shiel, Backhill of Garrary and Elderholm (or Backhill of Bush); these would have been occupied at least seasonally, maybe year-round. Backhill of Bush is the only structure left with a roof and is today a bothy.
drystone wall near Backhill of Bush bothy
These presences haunt the glen and are augmented by the place names. Toponyms give a useful insight into how a place has been viewed and used by humans. They often show an intimate knowledge of a place, perhaps offering a glimpse of what a place was once like or what creatures and plants used to live there. I listed the toponyms I had come across in my last blog post here. But, as examples, there is Otter Strand, supposedly so called as otters were once hunted here; and Rig of Crow Nest where a carrion crow once had its nest in a thorn tree (were crows once so notably rare that a nesting place of one would merit its place in toponymic history? I sometimes wonder if the OS cartographers were having their legs pulled by their local guides!). On other occasions naming seems less imaginative, more workaday, as in Green Strand and Black Strand. Some names also offer glimpses of previous owners or occupants: who was Downie, is Blytheman a family name? But what of the likes of Cooran Lane? Was Cooran a person, is it a lost dialect word? So often these names have become altered through time and telling, only with printing do they become more fixed.
Also of note is McWhann’s Stone beside the track before the turning to Backhill of Garrary. The stone is something of an enigma but was perhaps the ‘resorting place’ of Adam McWhann who was persecuted for his reformist beliefs. A bit more can be read here.
Staying with the historical, writers have also left a presence; not directly in the landscape but through their writings. There are numerous histories of the wider Dumfries and Galloway area that sometimes just about reference this remote fastness. However, McCormick in his Galloway: the Spell of Its Hills and Glens went as far as to describe the glen and its surrounding hills as ‘the cradle of Scotland’s independence’ (p18) … due to Robert the Bruce seeking shelter in the area following his defeat at Methven before regrouping to defeat the English on Raploch Moss (today this is Clatteringshaws Loch but ‘Bruce’s Stone’ (where he supposedly rested after the battle) can still be found near the visitor centre). Some sources think it was actually Robert’s brother Edward who was the ‘Bruce’ that was present here all those centuries ago …
Samuel Rutherford Crockett
The richest source of writings that I have come across associated with this area are the novels and biography of SR Crockett (1859-1914). I have already mentioned Crockett several times in these posts but it is worth saying again that although much of his writing is fictional it is all based on a deep and loving knowledge of the landscapes of Galloway. Several of his books mention the area in and around the project site specifically (e.g. Raiderland, Rose of the Wilderness and Silver Sand). His entire literary output can be found here. Crockett writes of a time when these hills would have been frequented by shepherds, hunters, vagabonds and fleeing soldiers … all these people moving about were leaving their mark in some small way.
It was in the period from the 1930s to the 1960s that things changed dramatically around the project site and human presence became much more obvious, much less subtle. The 1930s brought the damming of the Black Water of Dee at Clatteringshaws (and the flooding of Raploch Moss to form Clatteringshaws Loch) and then bewteen 1940 and 1970 land was acquired here for the planting of forestry, with afforestation really getting going in the 1950s. Commercial forestry has utterly changed the look of this area, from the 1500 hectares of uniformly planted Sitka spruce, through the infrastructure of tracks, bridges, signage, borrow pits, ditches and drains that are required to maintain this industry, to the acidification of waterways. For much of the time (weekdays at least) forestry workers will be visually and audibly present as they fell the trees and transport them down the hillside to the forest tracks ready for collection by huge articulated lorries, thin existing areas and prepare for forthcoming plantings. The rough tracks see toing and froing of lighter forestry traffic too. And the industry has brought residents almost back to the glen as some forestry workers stay in caravans on site during the week.
a home-from-home
Another group of people who have a presence in the glen, albeit a lighter touch, are scientists, citizen scientists and ecologists. With the Silver Flowe Ramsar site and the question marks over the effects of forestry on peat and water quality, this glen has become closely monitored. A permanent sign of these processes is the dip-wells on Silver Flowe: short sections of capped-off pipe protrude from the bog’s surface, these are set points through which to monitor quality and health of the bog. There is also a rather old interpretation board for Silver Flowe, now lichen spattered and faded, by the side track that drops down to the crossing point of the Cooran Lane giving access to the Flowe. Aside from these modest interventions, some more temporary monitors and the occasional field visits, the presence of this group is more present in research papers and data sets.
Backhill of Bush bothy with the Dungeon Hills behind
Apart from the notable exception of the bothy, the glen doesn’t tend to see much in the way of visitors and tourists. The Southern Upland Way touches the southern end of the project site and the surrounding hills certainly have their visitors, with Corbett peaks such as Corserine and Merrick being reasonably well frequented. The glen itself though is not on the way to anywhere, and the boggy nature of the terrain dissuades east-west passage most of the time. There are named rock climbing routes identified on the crags above the west side of the glen, on the Dungeon Hills, but the lengthy access makes them seldom visited. So, it is the bothy that is the main draw. The bothy has been close to closure on a number of occasions due to the abuse it gets from some visitors. It is, potentially accessible by car or motor bike as the forestry gates are often left open and it can always be accessed by those cycling or on foot. Many visitors have left their mark on the walls of the bothy and other kinds of marks (signalled by toilet paper) in the surrounding vegetation. Oh, of course, with human activity inevitably comes litter (even beyond the confines of the bothy). Sadly, the first thing I found when looking for the sources of the March Burn was a plastic wrapper from a pasty where the water should have been.
interior view of Backhill of Bush bothy
The last group of people I want to mention are the local inhabitants and those dwelling downstream from the project site. Maybe they fall into one of the above groups and they have a direct connection to the site but most of the time it will be the site that impacts upon their lives, most notably in their water supply and their electricity. I wonder how often thought is given to the origin of the water that flows to the Solway Firth at Kirkcubright … thought given to all these traces of human life that have significantly impacted the landscapes of the water’s journey?
Clearly missing untold numbers of personal narratives, but hopefully this post gives a good overview of the groups of people who ‘inhabit’ the project site in one way or another today.
Two very useful sources for exploring archaeology and place names are: Canmore and the OS name books which can be found on the Scotlands Places website.
… an uncertain surface … 