Landscape Statement – Vision

We have been custodians of various parts of the Archerfield Estate since the late 1960s. We continue to own and manage eighty hectares which includes mature forestry, farmland, a Georgian Walled Garden and fifteen rental properties. Our vision for the land we own is to sensitively farm the arable land, positively manage our woodlands, and repair and conserve our properties for the enjoyment of future generations.

As part of a farm diversification project, our aim has been to sensitively restore the derelict Georgian Walled Garden and its surrounds to provide an enterprising and accessible café and shop creating a high-quality destination for locals and visitors from further afield alike and creating jobs for over eighty people.

We actively encourage use of our estate and garden by community groups, school groups, and local volunteer networks to contribute to knowledge learning and sharing, and the provision of well-being through nature.

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How does this project deliver the principles of the charter?

1. Collaboration

We work closely with local community groups to provide facilities for use. We support local schools and playgroups and Dirleton Market on the Green, which provides high quality goods at an accessible market to an ageing rural population. We work with East Lothian Council Ranger Service on the provision of learning activities for children and adults.

We host the annual Edinburgh Taxi Outing where over one hundred taxis bring differently abled children on a scenic drive ending in fun activities on the Estate.

We host a weekly Junior Park run which regularly attracts over eighty runners and who have just celebrated their fourth birthday.

We have worked closely with Heriot Watt University and Dirleton Primary School on the provision of the Solar Walk – a scale model of the universe with the Sun located in the local village of Dirleton 1km away and Neptune at Archerfield Walled Garden – showcased at an annual Wonders of Space event.

2. Dynamism

We have been caretakers of the land at Archerfield since the early 1970s. Since 2013, we have worked to restore the Georgian Walled Garden on the estate which provides fruit, vegetables and herbs for our Garden Café emphasising the ‘garden to plate principle’.

Our Garden Team, helped by enthusiastic volunteers, have transformed the area from bare earth in 2014 to a thriving garden with lots of benefits for wildlife and a showcase for diversity.

We care for a wildlife area with pond, rose and scented garden, perennial meadow with fruit trees, cutting beds and ornamental borders including a water-saving border. Beyond the Walled Garden we have hot borders, live willow structures, and meadow plantings. In the garden we practice: No Dig – Mulching – Chemical free gardening – Dead-hedges and bug houses – Chop and Drop clear ups – Homemade compost and plant foods – Collection of rainwater.

We recycle and upcycle using estate brash to make dead-hedges, horse manure and wool packaging as mulch for fruit trees/rose mulch, and we compost coffee grounds from the café, weeds in plant feed, pallets from deliveries and cardboard from packaging, and use estate grown willow and birch for plant supports.

The garden is free to all, educationally as a team we are always happy to explain why we do things and how we care for the environment.

3. Diversity

We retain the last remaining thirty hectares of farmland at Archerfield and have been farming regeneratively for over 5 years using techniques that are innovative in Scotland and further afield. We consider best practice advice along with practical considerations for producing a regeneratively farmed crop with a decent return – meaning we are often an example of gold standard in this sector. We use beneficial microbes to improve soil health, therefore reducing the amount of fertiliser used and creating a more resilient, disease resistant crop.

Having completed Net Zero training, we are reassessing our Carbon Footprint to reflect the mitigative effects that our positive farming activities, woodland management practices and recent investment in two hundred solar panels and four electric vehicle charging points at the shop and café have on our wider landholding.

We have hosted the East Lothian Climate Hub: Healthy Soil for Growing and Nature convention, donated plants to numerous schools and community groups and delivered information sessions and lessons to schools on Where Our Food Comes from and Estate Management.

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What's Next

We are in the process of designing and creating a children’s play trail with five elemental themed areas which will be accessible and will encourage the provision of outdoor education through play in nature. There will be a learning hub available for use by community and school groups.

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Image Credits:

Archerfield Estates

Landscape Statement – Vision

Destination Tweed aims to celebrate and share the nature, history and stories of the River Tweed and deliver significant economic, environmental, educational and social benefits to the South of Scotland and North Northumberland.

Introduction to Destination Tweed: https://youtu.be/KNvy1s2Gtvs?si=naZWH2ixtatOe2c7

At the heart of Destination Tweed is the creation of the River Tweed Trail, a spectacular new walking and cycling route starting at Moffat before climbing to the source of the river, threading through the Scottish Borders and on to Berwick-upon-Tweed where the river meets the sea. This ambitious, multi-year, partnership-led investment includes a further 12 projects covering a wide range of cultural, river and landscape enhancements that are connecting communities and attractions along the route and creating opportunities to celebrate, care for, enjoy and promote the river sustainably.

Makerston 2 – tree boxes in which new trees have been planted to replace lost mature trees within the designed landscape at Makerstoun, near Kelso

The project includes natural heritage conservation projects to tackle environmental issues at source through woodland and pollinator habitat creation, river restoration and control of invasive non-native species. An array of ambitious education, heritage and cultural projects provide a varied and exciting programme of events and opportunities for participation.

Destination Tweed is a practical demonstration of the Charter’s vision in action, showing how integrated landscape management can deliver benefits across environment, economy, community and culture.

Edston looking north – riparian planting at Edston in Upper Tweed, delivered by Tweed Forum

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How does this project deliver the principles of the charter?

1. Collaboration

Destination Tweed embodies the collaborative approach through its partnership model. The project was conceived, developed, and is now being delivered by a partnership of organisations, including environmental charities and place-based organisations, bringing together expertise, connections and resources to deliver meaningful change across the region.

By working together closely, our teams frequently identify and act upon opportunities for collaboration between Destination Tweed’s 12 projects, strengthening connections between organisations and communities, and delivering better value for funders and stakeholders.

Our place-based and landscape-led approach relies heavily on dialogue and cooperation between our delivery partners as well as local authorities, communities of place and interest, local businesses, and a wide range of other stakeholders who live, work and visit the south of Scotland and north Northumberland.

Bringing communities along with us is at the heart of Destination Tweed, and the contribution of volunteers plays a key part in many strands of the project. For example, co-curated community archaeology project Uncovering the Tweed draws heavily on local interest and passion, working with existing heritage groups to support them in taking forward their own strands of research as part of the wider project. In starting a conversation, we ensure that the project creates meaningful opportunities to get involved in exploring the sites and themes that matter most to those who have spent years championing the heritage and archaeology of their local area.

Peebles INNS volunteers – after a day of Himalayan balsam removal

2. Dynamism

The Charter acknowledges that landscapes will evolve and change, and that this change needs to happen at pace, particularly around climate and nature. Destination Tweed’s river restoration work, woodland and pollinator habitat creation, and control of invasive species are all active examples of delivering dynamic change at scale through land management.

To use our environmental projects as an example, through Destination Tweed, we aim to: plant 300,000 trees to create new native riparian woodlands in the upper Tweed; restore and enhance up to 40 hectares of wildflower-rich habitat across 50 sites; restore 20 historic designed landscapes with around 5,000 native and specimen trees; and create 80ha of upland native woodland through the addition of 52,500 trees and shrubs.

Corehead Farm Hay Meadow June 2025 –  meadows enhanced by Buglife Scotland

By acknowledging that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”, Destination Tweed is creating dynamic change at scale, and at pace, across the Tweed’s landscapes.

Scything, Corehead (C Patience). Participants developing skills during a scything workshop at Borders Forest Trust’s Corehead site.

3. Diversity

Tweed Forum is lead partner in the delivery of Destination Tweed, and has long understood the importance of diversity in strengthening resilience at a landscape scale.

This is actioned through a variety of Destination Tweed’s projects. We are working to create, restore, monitor and manage a network of wildflower-rich habitat for pollinators along the Tweed river corridor. We are creating native woodlands which support a broad range of flora and fauna (oak trees support more life than any other native tree!). Our riparian planting projects stabilise riverbanks, improve water quality and help reduce flood risk. Our agroforestry schemes integrate trees into farmland in a planned and productive way. And the removal of invasive non-native plant species allows the riverbanks to return to a vibrant, flourishing and diverse ecosystem.

Neidpath agroforestry – agroforestry tree in cactus guard, allowing continued grazing while the tree establishes

Our work creating 80ha of upland planting contributes to Borders Forest Trust’s vision for Southern Scotland as a place where a rich tapestry of native woodlands and wild places flourish, cared for by volunteers and local communities.

Muirhouselaw 1 – tree boxes in which new trees have been planted to restore an historic avenue of trees at Muirhouselaw, near St Boswells

Some strands of Destination Tweed involve significant capital works, such as construction of the River Tweed Trail and the construction of a new bunk house at the Crook Inn. However, the project’s whole life carbon emissions will be net zero within 15 years, and will be net positive in the long term, resulting in less atmospheric carbon overall, as the trees that we are planting now continue to sequester carbon decades into the future.

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What's Next

Delivery of Destination Tweed continues into 2028, though its impacts will be felt for many decades afterwards. Central to project success is the creation of the River Tweed Trail which, once completed, will create opportunity for more people to spend more time along the river and in its landscapes. Project partners will build on the strong connections forged during delivery of Destination Tweed, collaborating to ensure a healthier river catchment and a lasting legacy for future generations.

 

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Image Credits:

Destination Tweed and various -see individual image credits

Landscape Statement – Vision

 

Our vision is that forests and woodlands of Angus will flourish and expand, provide high quality timber and form woodland nature networks with increased biodiversity. Angus landscapes will be resilient to climate change with forests and woodland storing carbon and playing a key role in natural flood management through slowing the flow of rainfall through the landscape. They will create attractive opportunities for recreation close to where people live and work and will provide opportunities for land-based businesses to adapt to a sustainable future.

Brechin was badly affected by flooding during Storm Babet in 2023. This event was a result of heavy rainfall in the Angus Glens part of the River South Esk catchment. It highlighted that this was at least part a wider landscape issue. It was recognised that changes in how we use the land can contribute towards creating a more climate change resilient landscape.

 

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How does this project deliver the principles of the charter?

1. Collaboration

The strategy is specifically designed to compliment other landscape capacity studies prepared for wind energy, solar energy and settlement expansion. It builds upon baseline assessment carried out as part of the identification of Local Landscape Areas in Angus. They will all be part of the evidence base for the forthcoming local development plan for Angus. Together, they contribute towards place-based and landscape-led land use planning.

2. Dynamism

The strategy recognises that the landscape needs to change to meet the twin climate and biodiversity crises. As a landscape-based process, it seeks to achieve this while retaining special landscape qualities. The spatial strategy seeks to protect stored carbon in peatland whilst increasing carbon sequestration in forestry and woodland. The strategy seeks to embrace natural flood management to reduce the impacts of flood events through slowing the movement of water through catchments. It seeks to regenerate, expand, connect and diversify woodland of high nature conservation value to increase their biodiversity value, resilience to climate change and contribution towards natural flood management.

 

3. Diversity

The strategy promotes diversity in forestry and woodlands whilst seeking balance with other land uses. It recognises that with climate change, Scots pine will become the main species in productive forestry within Angus, breaking down the sometimes-false distinction between productive forestry and biodiversity interests.

As well as promoting an increase in forestry and woodland cover, the strategy seeks to promote diversity in the uplands and encourages the re-emergence of natural tree lines, where montane woodland transition into montane scrub to increase biodiversity as well as contributing towards natural flood management. Opportunities for such montane woodland when associated with existing forests would also deliver landscape enhancement by removing the sharp transition between afforested and open habitats by the establishment of natural tree line. These woodlands naturally form part of a mosaic of habitats at the treeline.

In the lowlands, Angus has some of the best agricultural land in Scotland. With better soils, intensification has led to open arable landscapes.  Wind-blown soil erosion can often be an issue in lowland Angus, not only eroding valuable soils but also creating dust storms which affect air quality in settlements. With the climate predicted to become warmer and stormier, forests and woodlands can create shelter and reduce wind-blown soil erosion. As well as shelterbelts, there is opportunity for new forestry and woodland on flood plains or along river corridors to increase biodiversity, enhance woodland habitat networks and the resilience of landscapes to absorb natural flood events where seasonal floods make arable farming less appropriate.

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What's Next

 

The strategy supports the Forestry Grant Scheme administered by Scottish Forestry. Proposals which comply with the strategy attract a grant uplift. In addition, a project officer is currently promoting riparian improvements within the mid catchment of the River South Esk through the catchment partnership.

The strategy is being used in the consideration of planning applications, particularly in relation to considering woodland of high nature conservation value and their expansion zones in the context of energy infrastructure applications such as solar voltaic development. Lastly, it will inform the forthcoming local development plan.

 

More about this project

Image Credits:

Angus Council