THE VIEW FROM A WOOD

But it is much more than that………….

This is the view across a broad glen to the dramatic cliffs of Beinn Bhan of Applecross. It is taken from the edge of what is known as Rassal Ashwood. It is not simply ‘a wood’, but more of that later. This location reveals more about an often-controversial aspect of the history of the Scottish Highlands, its much-quoted ‘deforestation’, than any other place I know.

When I first visited Rassal, there were no barriers across this glen, (except for a small river which deer could easily cross), no deer-fences to impose different management strategies on either side. And the climate must have always been much the same right across it; the hilly side might possibly have had more rain, but might, arguably, benefit from a little more direct sun. And both sides are equally accessible, both easily subject to human activity throughout the millennia……..

That mountain side has virtually no trees, just the occasional small birch or rowan growing in a crack in the rock, a few hollies. The eastern side, in great contrast, has this very significant wooded area. Although it gets called an ‘ashwood’, it is, properly, a significant remnant of wood-pasture, an ancient landscape where agriculture was practised on areas of level ground (proved by the survival of some clearance cairns), while on the rockier banks and tracts, both ash and hazel survive, some clearly as managed trees. During early visits, it was the hazel which provided the most obvious proof of this complex history; there were some remarkable single-stem, pollarded hazels, (about which I have written elsewhere), that are seen as typical of old wood-pasture.

The human use of this side of the glen is clearly very old; there is a possible broch, much quarried, down closer to the sea, which would be from the Iron Age. But the name “Rassal” is undoubtedly Norse, meaning “Horse Field”, indicating their use of this area probably around 1000 AD, and that use of this good land must have continued through the following centuries. There are no obvious signs of external protection against grazing animals until the recent deer-fence was erected; it is probable that the wood-pasture would have been grazed over the winter months and leafing branches from the pollarded hazels may have been fed to stock in the spring.

This side of the glen, then, was long-used by the local people and their animals; but it is precisely here where the trees survive, in telling contrast to the much barer, western flank.

That apparent anomaly is because Rassal lies on limestone, which drains well and encourages the formation of good soil, while the western side is composed of much older, harder, Torridonian Sandstone, laid down in massive, almost totally impermeable layers. Most of the falling rain (and there is plenty here) remains on the surface, waterlogging what little soil actually erodes from the sandstone.

This glen makes clear that the key to understanding much of the Highland landscape (especially in the wetter North and West) lies in grasping the interaction between the geology and the climate……….the part played by the human species and its animals, (even, to some extent, by deer) is subsidiary.

The ‘ashwood’ survived, despite all the exploitation of the site over centuries, because of the nature of the underlying geology and how it coped with an extreme climate.