Date for your diary

The Trust is supporting the First Great Outdoors festival, with events across East and West Dunbartonshire and Stirling.

One of the many events taking place is a walk around Lang Craigs.  Join our site manager on Saturday 10th September for a stroll up Overtoun Glen onto the open muir.  As well as an opportunity to enjoy the fantastic site, and take in the stunning vistas across the Clyde and beyond, you will have the chance to find out more about our plans to transform this area into a new native woodland.

For more information and to book call 0141-956-6586 or email rangers@mugdock.org

Have Your Say – Lang Craigs Public Consultation

Come along to a public meeting to be held on Wednesday 10th August at 7.30pm to learn more about the Trust’s ambitious plans to transform Lang Craigs into a new native woodland.

Over the next three years, we hope to  work with local schools, giving 3000 children the opportunity to plant a tree and learn about their environment.  Through volunteer days and community and schools events the Trust aim to plant over 40,000 of the estimated 150,000 trees planned.

The land is visually stunning with the cliffs of the crags themselves towering over woodland, grassland and high moorland as well as the glens of the Overtoun Burn and Garshake Burn. Native trees such as oak, ash, birch and rowan will be planted, creating flourishing young woodland for wildlife.  The site will be sensitively designed to ensure the spectacular views are retained. 

The area is rich in history, with the unique geology of the Craigs, fossil beds, a prehistoric cup-marked stone, and more recent cultural history from abandoned farmstead sites, Victorian designed landscape features and a WWII bunker used to control decoy fires on the hills during the blitz. The Trust are also interested in tapping into people’s memories and knowledge of the land and its history and to use those stories to help bring the site to life for visitors. 

The site is already popular with walkers, in particular the route from Overtoun House into the Kilpatrick hills. The Trust aims to create additional routes, which can link into existing ones, taking, visitors  through the young woodland and allow.

The meeting is an opportunity for you to feed into those plans, it is our intention that the site becomes an intrinsic part of the local environment, and a place where you can go for a walk, a family picnic or a place to escape the stresses of modern life.

Everyone is welcome, whether you want to share your views or merely listen, we would encourage you to attend.

The meeting will be held in St Augustine’s Church, Dumbarton High Street.

If you are unable to attend, and would like to know more you can email the site manager roybarlow@woodlandtrust.org.uk.

Hope to see you there.

Can you help solve the mystery of the Starfish bunker

 The Trust is looking for the public’s help.  We want to speak to people who lived in the Dumbarton area during WW11 and more specifically those who may have memories of the bombing raid which took place on the evening of the 5^th May 1941.

 On the night of 5 May 1941, the Lufftwaffe carried out a bombing raid over the town of Dumbarton.  The raid resulted in 100 houses being destroyed and the loss of 17 lives. The Co-operativeSociety Building was lost to a delayed action bomb while both the Scottish People’s Theatre and a disused school were burnt to the ground.  The shipyards were relatively unscathed. It is believed that the town was spared from the devastation of neighbouring Clydebank in part due to the presence of an RAF Starfish Bunker decoy which is situated to the north of the town.

 The bunker was the base for troops that lit decoy lights and fires.  The site was just one of the many star fish bunkers built during WWII to lure the Lufftwaffe away from their intended target.

 The bunker still exists today and is situated in the Trust’s recent woodland acquisition at Lang Craigs, on the outskirts of Dumbarton.

 The Trust is looking for those who are willing to share their memories of that time.  You may have experienced the raid first hand or perhaps you grew up listening to tales of what life was like. We are particularly interested in any photographs of the bunker.

 If you think you can help us please email Scotland@woodlandtrust.org.uk or call 01738 635829

Lang Craigs – it ours!

Today we announce that Lang Craigs is finally in the ownership of the Woodland Trust Scotland.  The purchase marks the culmination of 18 months of fundraising, generously supported by the public and backed by some well known Scottish celebrities, including Harry Potter star, Robbie Coltrane, actress Elaine C Smith and TV personality Carol Smillie and Kirsty Young.

 This magnificent site, spanning 240 ha (600 acres) will be the largest native woodland creation in Central Scotland.  Over the coming years we will be planting 200,000 trees involving members of the local community and local school children. 

In as little as 12 years this site, will be transformed into a flourishing young woodland providing a home for wildlife and fantastic green space, ideal for family days out, rambling picnics or simply quiet contemplation.  Lang Craigs will belong as much to the people as the wildlife who call it home.

Celebrities give appeal momentum

The Lang Craigs appeal has captured the imagination of some major Scottish celebrities with Robbie Coltrane and Elaine C. Smith joining the list of stars who are lending their voce to the Lang Craigs appeal. 

We are really pleased that we have got their support, hopefully this will give the appeal added momentum.

Both Robbie Coltrane and Elaine C Smith believe that our project is a great way to engage young people with the environment and would become a fantastic resource for people to visit, whether it be for ramble, family picnic or for some quiet contemplation.

Why not visit the Lang Craigs appeal page and see for yourself the wonderful qualities the site has to offer.

Guided Walk – Thursday 10th June

The Trust will be organising a guided walk around Lang Craigs on Thursday 10th June from 6.00pm – 8.00pm.  Details are still being finalised, so please keep watching this space for further details.  The walk will provide an excellent opportunity to meet Woodland Trust staff and learn more about our plans for the area.

Celebrities get behind appeal

The Lang Craigs appeal is picking up pace with support coming from top Scottish celebrities.  TV presenters Carol Smillie and Kirsty Young along with TV actress Joanna McLeod are supporting the Trust’s plans to acquire the Lang Craigs site and giving children the opportunity to get out and plant trees.

TV actress Joanna McLeod says of the campaign ” Lang Craigs is a wonderful chance to get communities and children involved in planting trees, improve access to a really beautiful part of the countryside and encourage local people to get their kids out, just as my parents did for me.”

This belief is echoed by Carol Smillie, who has fond memories of playing out in woodland as a child  ” I spent my idyllic childhood in woodland and yet sadly, nowadays kids seem more interested in technology.  

If we all get behind the Woodland Trust and support their plans to plant 200,000 trees, generations to come will have he chance to enjoy the beautiful landscape it will create, and all the wildlife it will attract.”

Whilst Kirsty Young simply says  ” The beauty and tranquility of Scotland’s countryside is beyond compare.  Please do your bit to help the Woodland Trust in their vital work to keep it that way.”

Green fingered pupils plant trees in school grounds

The sun shone brightly as Primary 5 and 6 pupils from St Peter’s Primary School donned their gardening gloves and planted thirty trees in their school grounds thanks to the Woodland Trust. St Peter’s Primary are  just one of the many schools in West Dunbartonshire who have received free trees through the Trust’s Hedge and Copse  scheme this spring. 

The packs are just one way the Trust engages with young people.  We hope when the Trust acquires Lang Craigs, schools across the area will be enjoying many more tree planting and woodland discovery days, forging an everlasting connection with the growing woodland.

As we planted the trees in the schools grounds,  the Craigs dominated the skyline – a reminder of how close this auspicious site is to the town, and we hope that in time that the people of Dumbarton think the site belongs to them and is somewhere they can go for family days out.

Vote for the Lang Craigs Project

The Lang Craigs project has been shortlisted as one of  6 projects by the EOG Association for Conservation.  In partnership with Trail Magazine they are encouraging Trail readers and members of the public to vote for the project they think is the most eco-worthy.  The project with the most votes will  be awarded 30,000 Euros towards their project.

Voting opened yesterday and will stay open until midnight on Wednesday 10th February.  The Trust urgently needs your votes, if we are to secure this hidden gem for future generations.  Please vote today.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

With Christmas just a week away – I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported  our appeal. At a local level the appeal has been extremely successful.  If we are to achieve our ambitions for the site we still have a long way to go and fundraising will continue well into the New Year.

I wish you all a very merry Christmas and all the best for 2010.