Memories of Culbin: the bells
Professor Emeritus Paul Mitchell recalls his forestry research at Culbin as a post-doctoral researcher in the early 1970s. |
Culbin Sands first came onto my radar when I joined the Forestry Department of Aberdeen University as a Post-Doctoral researcher in late 1973. I had come to work on a research project based in the Forestry Commission’s Culbin Forest, following in the steps of earlier colleagues who had developed research projects there.
On the first of my many trips to Culbin Forest I was introduced to its history and the role that the Forestry Commission had played in stabilising the sand dunes by planting a forest of Scots and Corsican Pine over a period of 40 years from the early 1920s. The story of how a village had been overwhelmed by “The Great Sand Drift” of 19 October 1694 that buried the village, surrounding farms, manor house and chapel in a deep layer of sand figured large. As biologists and ecologists the conversation naturally turned to how it might have happened and the unintended consequences of harvesting too much Marran grass to thatch the local cottages and how earlier deforestation might have destabilised the land. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and it is intriguing how such evidence can now be ignored when approving more recent developments.
The project that I was working on at Culbin was to develop a better understanding of the needle cast disease that was infecting the pine trees, particularly Corsican Pine. This fungal disease has a complicated life history which results in the trees losing their needles prematurely reducing the trees growth and hence timber production. The commercial implications were such that the Forestry Commission later stopped planting Corsican pine as it was so susceptible to the disease. Our challenge was to study the biology of the disease and its epidemiology within the forest. This necessitated frequent and regular visits throughout the year and over several years.
In those days the forest was only accessible to FC staff and approved visitors so on most visits no other humans or dogs were encountered, and we were able to enjoy the surroundings when the only sounds were of the wind in the trees, our feet crunching through the sand, and wild animals and birds, including the colony of crested tits, going about their normal activities. Lunch breaks were often taken at the water’s edge. Ospreys were frequent visitors and other sea birds were encountered. Often, we thought that we heard the eerie sound of St Ninian’s Chapel bell ringing in the distance. We tried to explain it away by thinking up rational ways by which the sound of a church bell ringing far away could travel across the water. But sometimes the irrational explanation sticks with you ….. and I still often hear it in my mind.
The impact of a high wind coupled with dry conditions were brought home to me when, towards the end of the project, on the journey back to Aberdeen the road was blocked by a significant sand drift. There was less traffic then than nowadays and so we were able to navigate over the drift without too much difficulty or meeting frustrated drivers trying to pass the other way. Common sense and understanding prevailed. Sand and snow drifts and the vagaries of the A96 were at times challenging, but the abiding memory is the thought of that distant bell ringing out across the dunes.
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