Mining thepast forinfo
Dear Editor,
In December the Forestry Commission at Perth was overwhelmed with letters of protest from a great many organisations, historians and other individuals over the proposal to extend still further the commercial forest on the great battlefield of Sheriffmuir.
The protests came from across the country and even further afield, as far as the United States, where there are descendants of the men who fought in the battle, and Russia, where they were good historians of Scotland’s past.
The battlefield of Sheriffmuir, as your readers will know, is one of our most important historic sites, of national, not just local, importance, in the way that Bannockburn and Culloden battlefields were also turning points in Scotland’s history.
More than this, however, is the fact that it remains the burial ground of many from both armies who died in the battle.
Because of its significance, and the knowledge we have of the events of the battle, Historic Scotland ensured that it was among the first to be included in its quite comprehensive Inventory of Battlefields in Scotland, created as a reminder to planning authorities and developers that such historic sites should be respected in proposing developments of any kind on our landscape.
Ignoring the storm of protest, the Forestry Commission has now made known its decision to approve the planting, admitting that the commercial forest proposed will be wholly on the battlefield and will have an immediate impact on the setting and understanding of the site.
Is it perhaps a coincidence that the decision was delayed until the Scottish Parliament was in recess and the people it represents on holiday?
Although the Forestry Commission has long had a policy of honouring historic sites (‘The Forestry Commission and the Historic Environment’), incredibly in making this decision it claimed to have relied on the advice of the planning department of Stirling Council and Historic Environment Scotland, the successor of Historic Scotland, which attempted to protect the battlefield with inclusion in its Inventory.
The usual excuses have been given for promoting the planting: biodiversity, biomass, visitor attraction, red squirrel habitat, deer cull, but neglected to admit that of the old plantations already on the battlefield site, hundreds of trees lie windblown and neglected, that the applicant has already felled a beautiful mature woodland with its red squirrel dreys, that visitors do not require little tracks across a fenced in site covered in sitka spruce in order to understand a battle which took place on open moorland.
Oh, and archaeologists who would undertake to notify the police whenever human bones came to light with the ploughing, overlooking the survey already undertaken by the Centre for Battlefield Archaeology at Glasgow University.
In truth, however, the real attraction is a generous forest subsidy.
Anyone concerned about the further devastation of such an important historic site should contact in writing the Scottish ministers of Rural Economy, the Environment and Land Reform and Culture and MSPs concerned with these issues.
After all was it not the Forestry Commission who produced the policy document: ‘The Right Tree in the Right Place”?
Virginia Wills, Glentye, Sheriffmuir Dear Editor, We are exploring the landscape histories of abandoned colliery sites in Clackmannan and Stirlingshire through conversation with communities.
We are looking at how the sites have been used, re-purposed and redeveloped and how the industry has been remembered or commemorated from closure to present day.
If you have memories of any of the sites that you are willing to share, such as involvement in the decisions for their future use, watching the demolition and landscaping of the bings, if you played on the sites as a youngster or you simply played miss the headstock in the landscape, please get in touch with us via email c.j.mills@stir.ac.uk or alasdair.ross@stir. ac.uk or telephone 01786 467583. Catherine Mills and Alasdair Ross, University of Stirling