At the head of Annandale, north of Moffat in
Dumfriesshire, four great hills collide and form
in their depths a cavernous, dark and forbidding
semi-circular hollow known for centuries as the
Devil’s Beef Tub. In his novel, Red Gauntlet, Sir
Walter Scott described it as “a damned, deep,
black, blackguard-looking abyss.” A perfect
hidey-hole for the infamous Border Reivers
and their stolen cattle, the Devil’s Beef Tub
is today one of the iconic landmarks of the
Southern Uplands. It’s also part of Corehead
Farm, 640 acres of rolling hills and spectacular
valleys, which is about to be purchased by the
community-based Borders Forest Trust. At his
home near Peebles, the ecologist Dr Philip
Ashmole spoke with Iain Gunn.
n SCOTS Number 43 we reported on the Borders
I
Forest Trust’s extraordinary success with the
Carrifran Wildwood, the largest community-
based ecological restoration project in Scotland.
Ecologist Dr Philip Ashmole told us how people from
all walks of life came together to purchase a bleak
sheep-shorn upland valley and set about recreating
the beauty and the biodiversity of the landscape last
seen there 6000 years ago. One might have thought
that would be quite enough for any community-
based organisation to be going on with, but it turns
out to have been just the beginning of a much more
ambitious scheme – one which aims at the eventual
restoration of the historic Ettrick Forest, the ancient
Caledonian woodland that once cloaked most of
Selkirkshire. Having paid £335,000 for the 660
hectare Carrifran Valley in 2000, the Borders Forest
Trust now has the challenge of raising £600,000 for
the 640 hectares (1580 acres) of Corehead Farm,
which includes the Devil’s Beef Tub. So far the Trust
has raised £430,000 and is now more than two-thirds
of the way towards the asking price. Dr Ashmole
says he’s confident that support around the world is
strong enough to secure the balance well before the
egor purchase deadline.
Corehead’s spectacularly beautiful site is steeped
in Scottish history. The great patriot, William Wallace,
is reported to have gathered men from the Ettrick
Forest and the Border clans at Corehead and from
Sir Malcolm MacGr
the Tower led his first attack against the English in
1297. Those clans included Armstrong, Douglas,
Kerr, Oliver, Moffat and Graham – names that are
still proudly associated with the Borders. Throughout
The Devil’s Beef Tub
his armed struggle with England, Wallace used the
Ettrick Forest as his base and, in 1298, he was made
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