The Forest of Birse is a remote upland area in the upper catchment of the

Water of Feugh The Water of Feugh (pronounced:''few-ikh'') is a stream in Aberdeenshire that is the largest tributary to the River Dee. This stream rises in the Grampian Mountains of Scotland, in an area known as the Forest of Birse The Forest of Birse is ...

, which forms the south-western portion of the

Parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

Birse Birse ( gd, Braois/Breis) is a parish in the Lower Deeside area of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, which includes the communities of Finzean and Ballogie. However the name Birse is often used to refer only to the northwestern part of the parish which l ...

Aberdeenshire Aberdeenshire ( sco, Aiberdeenshire; gd, Siorrachd Obar Dheathain) is one of the 32 Subdivisions of Scotland#council areas of Scotland, council areas of Scotland. It takes its name from the County of Aberdeen which has substantially differe ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. It also forms the western part of the community of

Finzean Finzean (; gd, Fìnnean) is a rural community, electoral polling district, community council area and former ecclesiastical parish, which forms the southern part of the Parish of Birse, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Finzean was the subject of many ...

, but has a separate, complex history of landownership relating to its status as a commonty, which has involved a large number of disputes since the 16th century. In more recent decades, the forest has been a popular destination for people from

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...

taking

picnic A picnic is a meal taken outdoors ( ''al fresco'') as part of an excursion, especially in scenic surroundings, such as a park, lakeside, or other place affording an interesting view, or else in conjunction with a public event such as preceding ...

s, as it is the closest area of

Highland Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevation such as a mountainous region, elevated mountainous plateau or high hills. Generally speaking, upland (or uplands) refers to ranges of hills, typically from up to while highland (or highlands) is ...

scenery to the city.

Description

The eastern boundary of the Forest of Birse is marked by the Finlets and Laird's burns; two minor

tributaries A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drainage b ...

of the Feugh (itself a tributary of the River Dee) which join the river about 1 kilometre upstream from Woodend. Otherwise the boundary generally follows the

watershed Watershed is a hydrological term, which has been adopted in other fields in a more or less figurative sense. It may refer to: Hydrology * Drainage divide, the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins * Drainage basin, called a "watershe ...

of the Feugh, which runs along the tops of the following hills (clockwise from the south): Baudnacauner, Cock Hill, Hill of Cammie, Mudlee Bracks, Tampie, Gannoch, Hill of St, Colm, Craigmahandle, Hill of Duchery, Brackenstake, Lamahip and Corybeg. The Forest of Birse extends to approximately 35 square kilometres, and reaches its highest point at Gannoch (731 m). The underlying

bedrock In geology, bedrock is solid Rock (geology), rock that lies under loose material (regolith) within the crust (geology), crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet. Definition Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface mater ...

of the Forest of Birse is

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

, from which most of the

soil Soil, also commonly referred to as earth or dirt, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life. Some scientific definitions distinguish ''dirt'' from ''soil'' by restricting the former te ...

in the area is derived. However, a thick layer of

peat Peat (), also known as turf (), is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, moors, or muskegs. The peatland ecosystem covers and is the most efficien ...

has formed over many of the higher hills, creating extensive areas of

blanket bog Blanket bog or blanket mire, also known as featherbed bog, is an area of peatland, forming where there is a climate of high rainfall and a low level of evapotranspiration, allowing peat to develop not only in wet hollows but over large expanses o ...

. Historically, a '

Forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

' was an uncultivated area set aside for hunting and was not necessarily wooded, and indeed Heather

moorland Moorland or moor is a type of habitat found in upland areas in temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands and montane grasslands and shrublands biomes, characterised by low-growing vegetation on acidic soils. Moorland, nowadays, generally ...

is the principal habitat in the Forest of Birse. However, native pine woodland has regenerated across approximately 5 square kilometres of the northern slopes of the Forest of Birse since the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, principally on the Finlets, Lamahip and Bogturk hills. There are also fragments of

riparian A riparian zone or riparian area is the interface between land and a river or stream. Riparian is also the proper nomenclature for one of the terrestrial biomes of the Earth. Plant habitats and communities along the river margins and banks ar ...

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...

along many of the watercourses of the forest, containing a diverse range of native trees including

birch A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech-oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains 30 ...

hazel The hazel (''Corylus'') is a genus of deciduous trees and large shrubs native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The genus is usually placed in the birch family Betulaceae,Germplasmgobills Information Network''Corylus''Rushforth, K. (1999). ...

aspen Aspen is a common name for certain tree species; some, but not all, are classified by botanists in the section ''Populus'', of the ''Populus'' genus. Species These species are called aspens: *'' Populus adenopoda'' – Chinese aspen (China ...

and

holly ''Ilex'' (), or holly, is a genus of over 570 species of flowering plants in the family Aquifoliaceae, and the only living genus in that family. ''Ilex'' has the most species of any woody dioecious angiosperm genus. The species are evergreen o ...

. Within the Forest of Birse there are two small areas of cultivated land at Auchabrack and Ballochan, which also contain the forest's only inhabited buildings. These comprise Birse Castle and three other houses. The rich

wildlife Wildlife refers to domestication, undomesticated animal species (biology), species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wilderness, wild in an area without being species, introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous ...

of the Forest of Birse includes the

mountain hare The mountain hare (''Lepus timidus''), also known as blue hare, tundra hare, variable hare, white hare, snow hare, alpine hare, and Irish hare, is a Palearctic hare that is largely adapted to polar and mountainous habitats. Evolution The mountai ...

red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondar ...

and

roe deer The roe deer (''Capreolus capreolus''), also known as the roe, western roe deer, or European roe, is a species of deer. The male of the species is sometimes referred to as a roebuck. The roe is a small deer, reddish and grey-brown, and well-adapt ...

red grouse The red grouse (''Lagopus lagopus scotica'') is a medium-sized bird of the grouse family which is found in heather moorland in Great Britain and Ireland. It is usually classified as a subspecies of the willow ptarmigan but is sometimes consider ...

black grouse The black grouse (''Lyrurus tetrix''), also known as northern black grouse, Eurasian black grouse, blackgame or blackcock, is a large game bird in the grouse family. It is a sedentary species, spanning across the Palearctic in moorland and step ...

golden plover '' Pluvialis '' is a genus of plovers, a group of wading birds comprising four species that breed in the temperate or Arctic Northern Hemisphere. In breeding plumage, they all have largely black underparts, and golden or silvery upperparts. Th ...

hen harrier The hen harrier (''Circus cyaneus'') is a bird of prey. It breeds in Eurasia. The term "hen harrier" refers to its former habit of preying on free-ranging fowl. It migrates to more southerly areas in winter. Eurasian birds move to southern Eur ...

merlin Merlin ( cy, Myrddin, kw, Marzhin, br, Merzhin) is a mythical figure prominently featured in the legend of King Arthur and best known as a mage, with several other main roles. His usual depiction, based on an amalgamation of historic and le ...

peregrine falcon The peregrine falcon (''Falco peregrinus''), also known as the peregrine, and historically as the duck hawk in North America, is a Cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan bird of prey (Bird of prey, raptor) in the family (biology), family Falco ...

crossbills The crossbill is a genus, ''Loxia'', of birds in the finch family (Fringillidae), with six species. These birds are characterised by the mandibles with crossed tips, which gives the group its English name. Adult males tend to be red or orange in ...

and the area is occasionally visited by

golden eagle The golden eagle (''Aquila chrysaetos'') is a bird of prey living in the Northern Hemisphere. It is the most widely distributed species of eagle. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae. They are one of the best-known bird of p ...

s and

capercaillie ''Tetrao'' is a genus of birds in the grouse subfamily known as capercaillies. They are some of the largest living grouse. Taxonomy The genus ''Tetrao'' was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his ...

. Part of the area was declared an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...

and there was an unsuccessful attempt to have part of the area designated as a

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...

in the early 1990s.

History

The earliest inhabitants of the forest were

mesolithic The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymous ...

hunter-gatherer A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...

s about 8000 years ago. However, the first evidence of settlement comes from the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

, about 3000 years ago, in the form of

field system The study of field systems (collections of fields) in landscape history is concerned with the size, shape and orientation of a number of fields. These are often adjacent, but may be separated by a later feature. Field systems by region Czech Republ ...

clearance cairn A clearance cairn is an irregular and unstructured collection of fieldstones which have been removed from arable land or pasture to allow for more effective agriculture and collected into a usually low mound or cairn. Commonly of Bronze Age origin ...

s and

hut circle In archaeology, a hut circle is a circular or oval depression in the ground which may or may not have a low stone wall around it that used to be the foundation of a round house. The superstructure of such a house would have been made of timber and ...

s, of which there are several good examples in the Forest of Birse. At this time,

cereal A cereal is any Poaceae, grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain (botanically, a type of fruit called a caryopsis), composed of the endosperm, Cereal germ, germ, and bran. Cereal Grain, grain crops are grown in greater quantit ...

crops A crop is a plant that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence. When the plants of the same kind are cultivated at one place on a large scale, it is called a crop. Most crops are cultivated in agriculture or hydroponics ...

were probably grown on areas that are now covered with heather. At the beginning of the

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

there was a climatic deterioration and these farms were probably abandoned at that time and gradually reclaimed by nature. The Forest of Birse remained uninhabited from then until the 17th century. By the 10th century AD, the Forest of Birse (along with the rest of

) had become the personal property of the

King of Scots The monarch of Scotland was the head of state of the Kingdom of Scotland. According to tradition, the first King of Scots was Kenneth I MacAlpin (), who founded the sovereign state, state in 843. Historically, the Kingdom of Scotland is thoug ...

, and was used as a Royal Hunting Forest.

Kenneth II Cináed mac Maíl Coluim ( gd, Coinneach mac Mhaoil Chaluim, label=Scottish Gaelic language, Modern Scottish Gaelic, Anglicisation, anglicised Kenneth II, and nicknamed , "The Fratricide, Fratricidal"; died 995) was Kingdom of Scotland, King of Sc ...

hunted here in 995 AD and

Kenneth III Cináed mac Duib ( Modern Gaelic: ''Coinneach mac Dhuibh''; c. 966 – c. 25 March 1005), anglicised as Kenneth III, and nicknamed ''An Donn'' ("the Chief" or "the Brown"), was King of Scots from 997 to 1005. He was the son of Dub (Dub mac Maíl ...

in 1005 AD. In 1170, King William the Lion gave Birse to

Matthew, Bishop of Aberdeen Matthew (died 1199) was a 12th-century churchman residing in Scotland. He is the first man known to have held the position of Archdeacon of St Andrews, his first known ecclesiastical post. He occurs in this office in a document which can be dated ...

. The charter associated with this transfer is the first reference to the uninhabited Forest of Birse as a distinct area from the rest of

, where most of the population lived. Over the following 400 years the Bishops allowed the inhabitants of the wider parish of Birse the

common Common may refer to: Places * Common, a townland in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland * Boston Common, a central public park in Boston, Massachusetts * Cambridge Common, common land area in Cambridge, Massachusetts * Clapham Common, originally com ...

right to use the forest for the collection of

timber Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, wi ...

and

and for summer grazing. The

Bishop of Aberdeen The Bishop of Aberdeen (originally Bishop of Mortlach, in Latin Murthlacum) was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Aberdeen, one of Scotland's 13 medieval bishoprics, whose first recorded bishop is an early 12th-century cleric named Nech ...

sold off their properties in Birse between 1549 and 1620, around the time of the

reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

. All of the new landowners (and their

tenants A leasehold estate is an ownership of a temporary right to hold land or property in which a lessee or a tenant holds rights of real property by some form of title from a lessor or landlord. Although a tenant does hold rights to real property, a l ...

) were also granted the

right to use the forest for timber, peat and grazing. The forest itself was sold to William Gordon of Cluny in 1585 and in 1610 the Gordons

enclosed Enclosure or Inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or "common land" enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land ...

the best part of the common grazing, brought in

tenant farmer A tenant farmer is a person (farmer or farmworker) who resides on land owned by a landlord. Tenant farming is an agricultural production system in which landowners contribute their land and often a measure of operating capital and management, ...

s and built a

castle A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...

. However, after falling into debt, the Gordons of Cluny sold the forest to

William Douglas of Glenbervie Sir William Douglas of Glenbervie, Knt. (c. 1473 – 9 September 1513) was a Scottish nobleman, who fell at Flodden. Biography Douglas was the second son of Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of Angus, and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Boyd, 1s ...

in 1636 and in 1640 the other landowners in Birse burnt down Birse castle and drove the tenant farmers out of the forest in order to re-establish their common rights there. In 1666 the forest was sold to the

Earl of Aboyne Earl of Aboyne is a title in the Peerage of Scotland, borne in the Gordon family (see the Marquess of Huntly for earlier history of the family). There is some contemporary evidence that this title was first created for James Gordon, 2nd Visco ...

. In 1724 the Earl of Aboyne enclosed the land around Birse Castle again and once more tenant farmers were brought into the forest. At around the same time, the Farquharsons of

enclosed another area of land in the forest at Auchabrack, which had previously been the site of a

shieling A shieling is a hut or collection of huts on a seasonal pasture high in the hills, once common in wild or sparsely populated places in Scotland. Usually rectangular with a doorway on the south side and few or no windows, they were often cons ...

for one of their tenants. This encroachment onto the common grazing led to legal disputes with the other landowners with rights in the forest, which were resolved by the

Court of Session The Court of Session is the supreme civil court of Scotland and constitutes part of the College of Justice; the supreme criminal court of Scotland is the High Court of Justiciary. The Court of Session sits in Parliament House in Edinburgh ...

in 1755. The ruling allowed the two enclosed areas to remain as the private property of the Earl of Aboyne and the Farquharsons of Finzean respectively, but reconfirmed the common rights of everyone in Birse over the remainder of the forest. During the 19th century, the rise in the popularity and economic value of

grouse Grouse are a group of birds from the order Galliformes, in the family Phasianidae. Grouse are presently assigned to the tribe Tetraonini (formerly the subfamily Tetraoninae and the family Tetraonidae), a classification supported by mitochondr ...

shooting Shooting is the act or process of discharging a projectile from a ranged weapon (such as a gun, bow, crossbow, slingshot, or blowpipe). Even the acts of launching flame, artillery, darts, harpoons, grenades, rockets, and guided missiles can ...

associated with the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

led to a series of legal disputes over the hunting rights in the forest that were not fully resolved until 1897. The final ruling was that, while the Earl of Aboyne owned the land in the forest, the hunting rights were divided between the Earl of Aboyne and the neighbouring estate of

Ballogie Ballogie is a rural community and an estate in the Lower Deeside area of Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Most of Ballogie lies within the parish of Birse, although the northern part extends into the parish of Aboyne Aboyne ( sco, Abyne, gd, Abèidh ...

, which had been bought by the Nicol family in the 1850s. The division of hunting rights (which remains to this day) follows a line from the summit of Gannoch, down the Allanstank burn, along the Feugh to the Forest of Birse kirk and then along a track which runs north to Glencat. Ballogie estate have the hunting rights to the south and east of this line (the majority of the forest). In the same year as the final ruling on the hunting rights, the Earl of Aboyne sold the Forest of Birse to Joseph Robert Heaven, who rebuilt Birse Castle. After Heaven died in 1911, the Forest of Birse was bought by

Weetman Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray Weetman Dickinson Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray, (15 July 1856 – 1 May 1927), known as Sir Weetman Pearson, Bt between 1894 and 1910, and as Lord Cowdray between 1910 and 1917, was a British engineer, oil industrialist, benefactor and Libe ...

and became part of his Dunecht estate. In 1978, ownership of Dunecht estates (including the Forest of Birse) was passed by the 3rd

Viscount Cowdray Viscount Cowdray, of Cowdray in the County of Sussex, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1917 for the industrialist Weetman Pearson, 1st Baron Cowdray, head of the Pearson conglomerate. He had already been create ...

to his younger son, Charles Pearson, who is the current owner. The farmland at Auchabrack was sold by the Farquharsons of Finzean to the Nicols of Ballogie in 1938.Callander, R. (2000). History in Birse. Birse Community Trust Throughout most of the 20th century, the Forest of Birse was largely treated as an extension of the two estates which shared the hunting rights, as the older, common uses, such as summer grazing, peat cutting and timber had largely fallen into disuse. However, in the 1970s the regeneration of woodland in part of the forest and the felling of a small area of mature woodland by Dunecht estate raised awareness of the ancient common rights held by all the inhabitants of Birse parish, as the use of timber was one of these common rights. After several years of negotiation, a historic agreement was reached in 1999, in which the ancient rights over the forest held by all the inhabitants of Birse parish were vested in a body known as Birse Community Trust, which uses these rights to manage the 5 square kilometres of woodland that is regenerating in the north-east part of the forest. Ballogie and Dunecht estates continue to manage the remainder of the forest primarily for grouse shooting, and all three parties have regular meetings to discuss matters of common interest in the forest.

References

External links

Birse Community TrustBallogie EstateDunecht Estates
{{DEFAULTSORT:Forest Of Birse Forests and woodlands of Scotland Geography of Aberdeenshire Protected areas of Aberdeenshire