New Reserve for SWT

The Scottish Wildlife Trust (SWT) added a new site to its portfolio of over 120 reserves in Scotland today (Monday 2 October 2006) when Brock Wood, a 17-hectare woodland near Dunbar in East Lothian was presented to the Trust by David Jamieson. To commemorate this gift, a tree was jointly planted on the site by past and present owners.
Dennis Dick, Chairman of SWT said, “The Scottish Wildlife Trust is delighted to add Brock Wood to its reserves. The addition of Brock Wood now means that the Trust has a suite of glen woodlands along the eastern edge of the Lammermuir Hills.”
Brock Wood is 5 kilometres South of Dunbar, while just three kilometres to the south is SWT’s Woodhall Dean Wildlife Reserve, the largest area of genetically pure sessile oak in the East of Scotland.
Dennis continued, “These gorge woodlands are an important local geological feature as well as being the best remnants of ancient woodlands in East Lothian and Berwickshire. On behalf of SWT I would like to thank David Jamieson for ensuring the future of this important woodland.”
The reserve was donated by Berwickshire-based David Jamieson. “Over thirty years ago,” he commented, “after returning home to Scotland from Africa, a country struggling with wildlife conservation due to widespread corruption, I had the notion that in my small way I could help protect Scotland’s wildlife and landscape through owning a piece of land. Brock Wood was identified as a good acquisition. Twenty years later, I feel it is now the right time to pass this woodland to the Trust so that it can be managed with conservation in mind in perpetuity.”
Located five kilometres south of Dunbar, the woodland includes upland oak and alder, a rare component in the east of Scotland and a priority habitat for protection. This woodland is home to numerous plant species including the rare hoary plantain (Plantago media) and early dog violet (Viola reichenbachiana). Mammals such as badger and brown hare and more than 20 species of bird inhabit these woodlands, which are also home to the rare hoverfly, Platycheirus strictus.
Over the coming years, SWT staff and members of SWT’s Lothians Members Centre will manage the reserve to encourage the regeneration of native woodland species while controlling invasive species and bringing the wet grassland under a conservation grazing regime.