Crathes Castle Pinetum/Aboretum

Crathes Castle and Estate on Deeside has a long history in connection to forestry. It was once part of the Royal Forest of Drum and, in 1322, the king, Robert the Bruce, granted the land to Alexander Burnand, a Royal Forester. The landscape created by him and his descendants has been altered and managed for over 600 years. A practice that continues to this day.

The original owners, the Burnett family, started the tradition of planting non native species of trees throughout the estate in the 1850s and ’60s with species of trees from the northwest of the U.S.A. Examples of these line the entrance road to the castle and formal areas of the grounds. In the 1930s Sir James Burnett, inspired by the Pinetum/Aboretum at Durris, started his own Pinetum/Aboretum in an area north of the castle now dominated by native Scots Pine. Two thirds of his Pinetum/Aboretum was destroyed in the hurricane, or Great Storm, that hit the U.K. and parts of Europe in 1953.

The panorama shows examples from the planting of Sir James but also new planting by the current owners the National Trust of Scotland. Over the last five years, working from the planting books of Sir James, the Trust has been replanting many of the non native species that had been destroyed and to date, over 200 new plantings have been made. Thus leading to a diverse collection of non native and native tree species in the northeast of Scotland.

Europe / UK-Scotland

Lat: 57° 3' 0" N
Long: 3° 26' 0" W

→ maps.google.com [EXT]

Precision is: Medium. Nearby, but not to the last decimal.

Nikon D300, Nikon 12-24mm, Manfrotto 302 Panoramic Head, Manfrotto 190MF3 Tripod, QTVRAS