WILD WELLNESS


Into the wild


The Highlands of Scotland offer a unique sense of remote serenity, making it the perfect location for Glen Dye’s School of Wild Wellness and Bushcraſt. Words: Lucy Gillmore


“If I could pass on anything to the world it would be how to use a dock leaf properly.” As giſts to humanity go, it’s a little leſt-field, but


I’m not going to argue with the army’s first female commando turned wild wellness instructor and therapeutic forest practitioner, Pip Wright. I’m at Glen Dye, a Highland estate on the


eastern edge of the Cairngorms National Park with a very modern take on wellbeing and a newly launched School of Wild Wellness and Bushcraſt. For my first morning I’m with Pip, foraging and forest bathing, a “bimble” as she puts it, beside the peaty brown River Dye. On the other side of the river a huge pink billboard asks: ‘Shall we just love each other?’ It’s late in the season and we’ve missed most of


the mushrooms but there are still plenty of plants if you know where to look. Like under a hedge. Bending down, Pip picks a few small green


leaves for me to taste. “ Wood sorrel is packed with potassium and great in salads.” It has an almost citrussy tang. A patch of half-dead dock leaves and nettles


catches her eye. The dock leaf flowers are now stringy and brown. “You can grind them down to make flour, which is good for stodgy baking like brownies,” she tells me, rubbing the flowers between her fingers. “The leaves are also a good source of vitamin C and an alternative to spinach.” I’ve heard that you should pick nettles only in


CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Taking in the view across Glen Dye private estate in the Highlands; pouring a cup of tea after a long hike; relaxing with a good book at the firepit


the spring, but she uses them year-round, in soup and smoothies. “They are so densely packed with nutrients, adding them to your diet on a regular basis really boosts your immune system — and they’re free,” she smiles. “People think you need a lot of knowledge to go foraging — but everyone knows what a nettle is!”


And the proper way to use a dock leaf? “You have to chew the leaves before rubbing


them onto your skin. Or peel back the small leaf at the base of the plant and you’ll find a gooey substance like aloe vera. It acts as a cooling gel when you rub it onto the nettle’s sting.” Glen Dye is the perfect setting for a holistic


wilderness venture. With 15,000 acres of woodland, hill, moor and river, there’s forest bathing, tree-hugging, hiking and cold water therapy, aka wild swimming, on the doorstep. And wild wellness fits snugly into estate owners


Charlie and Caroline Gladstone’s slightly ofeat philosophy and vision. Aſter converting a number of workers’ cottages and the old steading into a handful of vibrant, vintage-chic hideaways (they’re also the founders of homeware brand Pedlars), they turned their hand to a series of ‘camps’, or mini-festivals, themed around wild food, craſts and wellness. Not a huge departure, they also established


the Good Life Experience festival with Cerys Matthews back in 2014, an eclectic celebration of singalongs, storytelling and campfire cooking on their other estate in North Wales. There has been the odd stumbling block along


the way. The launch of the camps coincided with the pandemic, but creative thinking is part of their DNA. Daughter Xanthe reinvented the wild food camps into a series of guest chef residencies, with foraging, food demos and supper club feasting. And now the wild wellness school offers bespoke wellbeing sessions in the wilderness along with the opportunity to create your own DIY wild wellness retreat. The concept of wild wellness is one we’re all becoming more familiar with. As we learnt during


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