Old Grandtully Castle Wood

Information derived from an excellent talk jointly arranged by the Breadalbane Heritage Society and the Scottish Wildlife Trust (Pitlochry and Highland Perthshire group). The speakers were - Rick Worrell, Angus Ross, Piers Voysey and Emma Burtles. (17th February 2020)

This is a privately owned wood of 46.08 acres. It is owned by four families who are happy to have public pedestrian access to the wood. It is an old established Wood with mixed deciduous trees including oak, beech, ash, and alder. In the past the oak was coppiced and there remains some evidence of this.

The owners have formed a company and they include Rick Worrell, Angus Ross, Piers Voysey, Emma Burtles and David Ashcroft. They have work parties to maintain the paths, plant trees and generally manage the woodland. 200 oak saplings have been planted following a failure with planted acorns. The acorns were eaten by mice and maybe voles. Professor Paul Jarvis (Founding Trustee of Highland Perthshire Communities Land Trust which manages Dùn Coillich) who before retirement was Professor of Forestry at Edinburgh University found that voles would eat most of planted acorns. Often acorns are hidden by Jays and then, when forgotten, get the chance to germinate.

Acorns from Old Grandtully Wood are successfully collected from the existing oaks and are sold in sackfuls for planting at other sites.

There are Beavers in the vicinity of the wood but Rick Worrell says that the wood is robust and the trees are mature enough that the beavers have little impact.

Rick Worrell and Piers Voysey are members of the Forest Policy Group - Forest Policy Group

Angus Ross had a background in Industrial design before establishing his furniture business in Aberfeldy. Angus Ross Furniture

Emma Burtles runs the Highland Perthshire Cycling information service and started Justwheels, a wheelchair charity.

David Ashcroft is a GP in Aberfeldy and Rannoch.

The wood hosts a wide variety of plants ranging in soil preference from acid (chickweed wintergreen) to basic (globeflower). Others to mention are wood anemone, Stitchwort, Wood sorrel, and bluebells.

The owners have a ‘light-handed’ management policy but use some of the timber for Angus Ross to make furniture and artworks in his Aberfeldy workshop. Here he makes much use of steam bending of the wood to create elegant shapes. The owners have their own small saw mill on site to cut timber into planks.

The disused railway has now grown trees on its embankments and where once there was a patch of grazing land ear the river alders have grown up into quite large trees. Aerial photos show that the A827 road once had an avenue of trees and it is thought that these were probably elms that succumbed to Dutch elm disease just as the ashes are now, unfortunately, dying of ash dieback.

An impressive bracket fungus on birch.

Within the property there are the foundations of what was a Manor House long ago. The ruins are scarcely discernible now but experts have been able to work out where there was a living room, hall and stables.

In the area of the wood there is also a glacial esker. This is a winding mound of debris left behind from a stream flowing beneath the ice.

The wood is situated between the disused railway that used to go between logierait and Aberfeldy and the river Tay it is about a mile and a half toward Aberfeldy from Grandtully.