Agricultural History Review, Volume 53 Part 1 (2005), p. 118

Despite popular ill-considered disdain, conifers are the chief renewable resource of raw materials for the paper, board and light structural framing used in Britain. The sole useful indigenous representative is Pinus sylvestris, the Scots pine.

In Scotland, the native pinewoods, scattered remnant fragments though they be, are the glory of their glens, the open woods being now regarded as of the highest aesthetic and biological interest. It was not always so. The woods were ‘mined’ for timber, subject to fire, and when taken as shelter in winter by sheep and deer all regeneration would fail.

Peter Wormell lovingly describes woods that are fragments indeed, clinging to a number of sites around Loch Tulla, close to the A82 trunk road as it rises northwards onto the bleakness of Rannoch Moor. The woods are at altitude, in a high rainfall area, and on poor morainic soils. An early eighteenth-century laird contracted to allow ruinous exploitation of these woods. history review

In response to enlightened twentieth-century ownership by the Fleming family, Wormell has himself been instrumental in a vigorous ongoing scheme to restore and extend the native woods by planting and regeneration. In early chapters, Wormell charmingly yet accurately describes the pinewood scene and the perils that challenge its existence. His final thoughtful chapter brings us up to date with recently-developed principles and attitudes underlying good woodland management in the highlands.

The book is well produced and has delightful wood engraving illustrations by Christopher Wormell, the author’s nephew. This is an inspiring addition to a widening recent literature which has it roots in Steven and Carlisle’s account of the pinewoods at their nadir fifty years ago.