Landscape in Focus – Glenan Wood

In the first week of September (otherwise known as Scottish Archaeology Month!) Archaeology Scotland and the Friends of Glenan Wood were delighted to welcome volunteers to explore the rich cultural heritage within the community woodland landscape at Portavadie, Tighnabruaich as part of this year’s Scottish Archaeology Month. With a focus on conservation and vegetation management attendees to the two-day event joined rangers and archaeologists at Glenan old village, a pre-improvement township that includes unroofed buildings, enclosures and the remains of a kiln and a well.

Long since abandoned the settlement still manages to captivate visitors who venture deep into Glenan Wood. Today, the township stands as a testament to the generations of families, of the farmers and fisher folk, who worked the land, the echoes of their voices still hanging over open doorways, and the stone walls that shaped their everyday lives still framing their memories. Today, volunteers are helping to learn more about the township and how the buildings were constructed. They are hoping to interpret and tell the story of old Glenan, to learn about, and celebrate, the people who called them home. The initial work will include vegetation management and site monitoring leading to historic building recording, conservation best practice and field survey.

It was wonderful to see so many folk taking part and engaging last week. We are grateful to everyone who joined in to tackle the vegetation and to help us begin to understand more about the archaeology and heritage of the wood.

Further workshops are continuing throughout the Autumn months and details of Archaeology Scotland’s activities are included alongside those of the Friends of Glenan Wood at https://www.glenanwood.org.uk/whats-on/.