A Short History of Balloch Wood, Creetown

The age of Balloch Wood is hard to precisely determine. On the one hand descriptions by travellers through Galloway in the 17th century often suggest that the area was barren and treeless. On the other hand the Blaue Atlas of Scotland of 1654 depicts tree symbols surround the small settlement of ‘Ferry toun’ (the old name for Creetown). However, surveys, maps and first hand reports all agree that by the mid 18th century this area was almost certainly wooded. After the Jacobite rising of 1745 the Roy Map was put together to identify new locations for military roads leading to the 1763 building of the Corse of Slakes road which follows the Balloch Burn and cuts through Balloch Wood at the current location of the wildlife ponds. Military surveys show the area south of Ferrytown of Cree – on the lower slopes of the surrounding hills, and adjacent to the Balloch Burn – as woodland before opening out higher up the slopes into unenclosed cultivation and open moorland. The Old Statistical Account of 1794 also notes this stretch of coastline as ‘a pleasant stage in Scotland, the whole being diversified with woods, gentlemen’s seats, and beautiful inclosures, hills rising on the one hand, the bay on the other’.

By the middle of the 19th century it was reported that ‘there are considerable forests of natural wood in this parish, especially upon the banks of Kirkdale and Cassencarie. These forests extend for several miles, and are principally composed of oak and ash, and are cut down at the end of every twenty or thirty years’. Hazel and thorn were the two other principal species used at this time for coppice, with additional uses for timber including making railway sleepers and wagons. The first edition OS map of 1850 clearly shows trees along the banks of the Balloch Burn and more extensive woodland north of the ford and in the area of woodland north west of where the wildlife ponds are now.

A significant amount of planting was carried out in the early 1900s in Balloch Wood and timber was further used during wartime for shipbuilding and making pit-props and gunpowder. However, the woodlands were principally used for amenity and game rearing prior to their purchase from the Cassencarie Estate by the Forestry Commission in 1958 – 238 acres for a price of £890. The tree planting undertaken during the 1960s to the east of the wood (predominantly of conifers including Sitka Spruce, Douglas Firs, Larch and Norwegian Spruce) is likely to be the first time grazed land had been planted for hundreds of years. However, timber production has never been a major consideration of forestry commission activity in the woodland, largely due to practical difficulties with extracting timber from the forest. Currently Forestry Commission plans identify Balloch Wood as a Natural Reserve that employs low impact forest management regimes, with greater emphasis placed on recreation, wildlife and landscape considerations. The long term aims are to gradually restore the Balloch Wood to broadleaf woodland with trees such as ash, oak, birch, aspen and rowan replacing coniferous species.

Balloch Wood is mixed woodland, consisting of roughly a 60’40 split between modern conifer woodland and native broadleaf.

Two of the oldest trees in the woodland include a Rowan located at the far side of the Wildlife Ponds from the Roundhouse and an old hazel tree located half way along the Pond trail at the side o the dyke which marks the boundary of the woodland. There are also a number of Hawthorn trees within the wood: a species has been noted in this area for several centuries. In 1862 Symson noted ‘I have observed many hawthorne-trees growing in several places, the boughs or branches, (and many times the bole too) I have observed growing, or inclining towards the south-east. The country people commonly account the cutting down of those trees ominous, and tell many stories of accidents that have befallen such as attempted it, especially those trees of the greater sort.’

Permission was also granted to the Balloch Community Woodland to plant a range of native and exotic trees. In the environs of the wildlife ponds poplar, rowan, hazel, apple, great white Japanese cherry, golden willow and Spanish chestnut trees have been planted. A ring of rowans has also been planted at the picnic spot by Darach Bridge at the start of the Oak Trail, and a row of young lime trees line the start of the same walk. Other trees and shrubs planted by the project in recent years include Blackthorn, Sessile Oak, Red Oak, Scots Pine, Cherry (Gean), Yew, Hawthorn, Juniper, Hazel, Aspen and Italian Alder.

Otherwise there are a range of different broadleaf and conifer trees species. Some of the most prominent of these are the Japanese larch trees which distinguish the lower reaches of the wood and the oak, birch and beech trees which surround the Oak Trail. Meanwhile a huge variety of trees can be spotted while walking along the Pond Trail.

In the 1940s there was a sawmill located adjacent to Balloch Bridge and near the ponds, with timber being used for the war effort for ship building and making gunpowder and pit props.

Local man Willie John Farrell tells what he remembers of this time:
‘Tree felling began around 1940 by James Davidson and his family, who lived on-site with other workers, the horsemen and families in wooden huts. Work would start at 7am with half an hour for lunch and finished at 5pm (noon on a Saturday) with Sundays free. Tea was brewed in syrup tins over the fire where there was no danger of fire spreading. There were a great number of squirrels in the wood at this time and they used to steal the bread from lunch bags. Unfortunately this was a risky business and many squirrel drays were killed when the trees were felled. Axes and cut saws were used to fell the trees since chainsaws were not yet invented, with two men pulling the saws backwards and forwards at the base of the tree’.

The sawmill used a 10 HP engine wood burner and drove three saws. Trees were brought into the sawmill by two horses using pole wagons with the horses also stabled near the ponds. A horse was drowned on one occasion in Balloch Burn when part of the bank gave way and the wagon and horse fell into a deep pool. On another occasion a spark from the sawmill chimney set fire to dry bracken and destroyed a number of wooden huts. A section of sawn wood was used to lay down a tram way for the extraction of the wood from the forest. Two wooden bridges had to be built across the Balloch Burn simply by laying down heavy strong trees and covering them with sod. Since the ground was too soft for horses the men had to push small wagons along the tramway as far as the council road where the trees could be loaded onto lorries using a hand crank derrick crane.

The trees were then transported to Creetown Station and taken to the Clydesdale Ship Building works for ship construction for the war effort. The whole job took roughly 3 to 3 and a half years and approximately 20 men were employed.

(Research by Lucy Burnett. August 2008)

Thank you to Joe Scherrer for allowing us to copy his original text.