Ardtornish Estate Newsletter Summer 2021

Hugh Raven

Nicholas Goodison, who has died aged 87, was a polymathic public figure who loved Ardtornish.

Known mainly as the architect of the root-and-branch reforms that revolutionised financial dealings in the City of London, reasserting it as one of the pre-eminent global financial hubs, he was highly unusual in achieving distinction in a range of other disciplines.

A keen fisherman and sailor while at Ardtornish, he was also an expert photographer with a curator’s eye, producing the volume of quirky and unexpected images shot at Ardtornish and published in 2005 as ‘These Fragments’.

Nicholas’s financial career, starting when he joined his family stockbroking firm, saw him become among the youngest chairmen of the London Stock Exchange and the main influence over the huge early 1980s change in regulation and dealing arrangements known as Big Bang. Simultaneously he became known as a noted connoisseur of certain decorative arts, including fine 18th-century English clocks, later leading to his membership and chairing of many boards – including of the Courtauld Institute, English National Opera, the Crafts Council, Burlington Magazine, and the Fitzwilliam Museum. For many years he chaired the National Art Collections Fund.

Earlier he won a scholarship to King’s College, Cambridge, where he was tutored by my father John, and met my mother Faith’s cousin and adoptive sister Judy Abel Smith. They married, and so began a long tradition of family holidays at Ardtornish, as part of the family staying in their own flat in Ardtornish House with their daughters Katharine and Rachel and son Adam.

For several years Nicholas was on the board of the Ardtornish Estate Company. Besides his guidance in the running of Ardtornish as a business, his expertise was felt in the evolution of Ardtornish House, particularly in its collection of furniture and pictures.

Nicholas’s love for Ardtornish and his scholarship brought its specialness alive to a generation of younger visitors. His influence will live on here for many years.

Chris Cowsill

The end of a drier than average quarter at Ardtornish has seen the hydro’s struggle, but let us not be down hearted. Dry spells are an ideal time to get things done. We have been concentrating on maintenance and general repairs so we are ready when the rains do come.

The replacement of Rannoch Dam railing is fully underway and repairs to Tearnait are complete. We have also completed replacing the bridge on the track to Tearnait which hopefully will last for many a year to come.

A special thanks to Lochaline Fire department for helping us clean the Rannoch Dam intake, thanks to your help we were able to achieve full output for the first time this year.

Kat McLaughlin

We are finally open and welcoming visitors once more; the season ahead looks busier than ever.

The recent spell of dry, warm weather has been the stuff our visitors dream of, less so our hydro operation.

It’s a busy time for our housekeeping team who are coping well with the pressure of CV19 and maintaining each property to a high standard.

The transformation of Robin’s shed into a Farm shop is now complete. With very little investment, we have created a fantastic new retail space to showcase some of the best Scottish producers, which includes our Farm and Kitchen Garden.

Our campaign to smarten up Achranich yard will continue but phase 1 is now complete. The area outside the Offices and Gift Shop looks great and we are receiving lots of positive comments from our guests. Late October will see work resume on the car park area, whilst Darren will continue to freshen up the paintwork on the surrounding buildings throughout the summer months.

Suzy Kraike

Formal Gardens

Grass cutting is now well underway and some of the larger lower lawns are being converted to native wildflower meadows where appropriate. This will increase biodiversity of the gardens encouraging wildlife and increasing pollinators which are sadly in decline. Paths, edges and picnic areas are still being mown to allow unhindered access and enjoyment of these areas. Strimming, cutting back and blowing the main paths is being carried out regularly to maintain aesthetics and enjoyment throughout the garden.

Soft landscaping of the estate office area has been completed with the addition of hanging baskets, containers and galvanised troughs. The troughs have been planted with shrubs and perennial plants providing all year-round interest and avoiding replanting every year which is less time consuming and better for the environment.

Bamboo has been cut back along the grass verge, improving both the visibility and appearance leading to the estate office.

“Hot, cold, wet, dry… we’ve had it all and not quite in the right order!”

Kitchen Garden

The weather has had a huge impact on the plants from too cold and not doing anything to very warm and bursting into life all at the same time as opposed to a steady succession of germination and maturity. Some plants i.e., spinach bolted almost immediately after germination. Temperatures in the polytunnels during the last week of June were in the mid 40’s.

Harvesting of salad has been continuous and to date we have also had beetroot, carrots, spring onions, spinach and cherries.
In the coming weeks I will be harvesting salad, spring onions, broad beans, peas, garlic, carrots, beetroot, kale 3 x varieties, strawberries and black currants.

5 varieties of tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers are all growing well and starting to set fruit. Runner beans, french beans, courgettes, celery, butternut squash, and pumpkins are all maturing nicely.

Longer term vegetables are growing well including 3 x varieties of cabbage, 3 x varieties Kale, 2 x varieties cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, tender stem broccoli, 2 x varieties onion and leeks. I will also be sowing more short-term varieties over the few weeks’ spinach, radishes, turnip etc.

Potato field is finished! … Finally, 7 varieties of potato from first early to late main crop, seeing us through to the end of the year hopefully. A back breaking task of digging up and removing many large perennial weeds. We initially tried using the large rotavator but soon realised the ground was too full of rocks and weeds and the whole process was making it worse. So, digging and weeding by hand was the only way forward in order to plant over 200 seed potatoes…

We have also introduced a 16-metre cut flower bed including sweet peas, knautia, cosmos, sunflowers, roses, penstemon, orlaya etc. To provide fresh flowers for guests and visitors. Most of the plants selected are perennials which will come back each year reducing the need to replace them all each year and as mentioned previously also better for the environment.

The wildflower meadow is looking fabulous encouraging pollinators to the kitchen garden essentially to pollinate all our fruit and vegetables.

Ross MacKay

Woodland consultation

In the development of Woodland creation or Felling proposals we must consult relevant local stakeholders like the Community Council or the Deer Management Group. Who could be more relevant than our own team and community at Ardtornish?

As such I would like to present to you all two proposals we are currently working on.

1. Be-ach native woodland extension.

A new woodland enclosure, of about 65ha, would be located in the White Glen on the lower slopes of Beinn Mheadhoin. It would adjoin and extend a successfully establishing woodland enclosure planted in 2010/11.

Also 2010/11 the estate enclosed and planted several areas in the White Glen. Two of these enclosures straddled the main river which led to fence and water-gate damage. This subsequently led to repeated deer break-ins and the trees failing to establish.

Just over 22 hectares of the new woodland proposal is intended to compensate for these failed woodland enclosures. As such the location, close to the failed sites, is a necessary feature of this proposal.

The species mix will be similar to that of the adjacent woodland;

Downy birch, Alder, Rowan, Grey willow, Sessile Oak, Eared Willow, Aspen and some Scots Pine. Possibly Hazel, Bird Cherry, Hawthorn and Holly if we can find an appropriate tree source.

We feel that this woodland creation proposal, in extending native woodland cover will enhance the upper White Glen, both aesthetically and ecologically and provide many offshoot benefits.

1. Felling near Achabeg and Lochaline

There are two small stands of mature spruce trees (see map below) that are at a stage in their life where they will be increasingly susceptible to being blown over. This presents a risk to adjacent property and power lines. As such we feel now is an appropriate time to consider felling these trees.

We propose to restock the sites with a native mix of broadleaved trees (similar to the above woodland creation proposal). Not only will this be an aesthetic improvement on the visually intrusive spruce but it will provide a better habitat for wildlife and through tree species selection will reduce the risk posed to property and powerlines in the future.

Both of these proposals are currently being developed and if approved work may commence later this year. If you would like further detail or would like to comment on either proposal, please contact me at ross@ardtornish.com.

Steve Hardy

Everyone was saying hasn’t the weather been great, and yes, spring was mostly dry, and often sunny, but those single figure temperatures! Those relentless northerlies! They continued into the third week of May, oak woods only greened up towards the end of the month, Ash woods later still. How did our summer visitors cope? They needed insects, and there were none. Birds like swallows and sand martins that feed only on air born insects…how did they survive those cold insect-less weeks? One cold windy day i counted 80 sand martins hawking low over the water of Loch Arienas, flying just above the water into the north wind, hoping it would blow them insects from the shore to them. And the summer birds in those woods, normally when they arrive back here after a winter away they would straight away get down to the business of breeding, setting up territories, building nests, egg laying, feeding young, all within those first few weeks after arriving, but this year they had to spend that time trying to find enough food to stay alive. Eventually though, the temperatures lifted, and it all turned green seemingly in a rush to catch up, but it has felt like we missed the spring, or that it was a very short very late one.

It was nice to have a singing male pied flycatcher in Arienas wood for a few days. This is about as far north and west that you might find them. The last record I had was in 2013, and before that in the nineties. It would have been nice if his singing had attracted a mate, but not so…one day perhaps, as the habitat is right for them here. There were two sightings of Ospreys in June, one at Loch Tearnait and one at Loch Arienas. These will be failed breeders, and I’ve heard that many eagle and osprey nests failed this year due to cold temperatures and rain around the time of hatch. Other species made it though, I have seen some young birds around, but later and smaller broods, and I think for some single brooded species they simply just didn’t breed this year. I saw a female goosander leading her brood of ducklings out into the waters of Loch Arienas from the woods where she would have nested in a tree hollow or hole in a bank. And the young of common gulls and waders such as greenshank were seen on upland hill lochs.

The news really for this period is about a very rare little butterfly that occurs only within a fifty or so mile radius and mainly west of Fort William, and no where else in the UK, the chequered skipper. It was first recorded in Morvern in 2012 at the old settlement at Inniemore, and was then recorded – just two records – on the reserve the following year. There were no records in 2014, then 3 in 2015, 1 in 2016, 4 in 2017, 6 in 2018 and 17 in 2019. Due to covid, butterfly monitoring didn’t go ahead in 2020, but it was resumed this year, and in just one day I counted 21 skippers on the reserve butterfly transect, and there was still the rest of their flight period to go! I also was seeing them in good numbers elsewhere on the reserve, and elsewhere around Ardtornish, such as above the ash wood on the eastern side of Loch Aline, and other people were reporting them too. This is nothing short of a population explosion that has been reported to Butterfly Conservation, and they agreed. Why this has happened I don’t know, perhaps its that we’ve had several good June’s in recent years, when they are on the wing, but whatever the reason its great to find a species doing well for a change, especially one so scarce.

Other butterflies that have been on the wing were green hairstreak, green-veined white, speckled wood, pearl-bordered fritillary, small heath and more recently small pearl-bordered fritillary and dark green fritillary, meadow brown, the rarer large heath, and on the very special meadow below Kirk Brae in the village, the rarer still marsh fritillary, i saw three there on the 26th and it was great to see them and know they are still there as I think its the only site where they are found in Morvern. Summer dragonfly and damselflies too when it eventually became warm enough, beautiful demoiselle damsels, golden ringed dragonfly, four spotted chasers, keeled skimmers, and a sighting on the reserve of the rare northern emerald.

Red deer have spotted calves now. I was lucky enough to come across a mother with her hour or two old calf, only just on its feet, floppy eared, wobbly legged, and still birth wet. It nuzzled its way round its mother to her teat, whilst she licked its coat dry. I think most mammals will have young in June…i wonder how the red squirrels are doing and if there will be any young seen in the coming weeks.

Many of our Arctic Alpine plants have been in bloom on the mountains in June, including the very rare Arctic sandwort, Northern rock cress, mossy saxifrage, and moss campion, among others.

These 5 stunners fledged the nest the morning this photo was taken.