Woodland of the Black Isle

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Introduction to the Black Isle

The Black Isle lies in the East Highlands of Scotland. The Highland Council currently defines The Black Isle as the peninsula bounded to the north by the Cromarty Firth and to the south by the Beauly and Moray Firths.  It includes the villages of (from west to east) Muir of Ord, Conon Bridge, Tore, Culbokie, Munlochy, North Kessock, Avoch, Fortrose, Rosemarkie and Cromarty, and other smaller settlements and countryside between those settlements.  It incorporates the eastern section of Muir of Ord Community Council area (comprising the village of Muir of Ord) and the entirety of the Community Council areas of Conon Bridge, Ferintosh, Killearnan, Knockbain, Resolis, Avoch and Killen, Fortrose and Rosemarkie, and Cromarty.

Compared to much of the Highland region, the Black Isle is lower-lying, and except for the Milbuie Ridge is dominated by farms and large estates with rich agricultural land. The Black Isle is not an island; it is mostly surrounded by the sea, and the main north/south access to the Black Isle is by the A9 road, with bridges over the Moray Firth and Cromarty Firth. A small car ferry crosses over the Cromarty Firth at Cromarty to Nigg in the summer. The Black Isle has an area of around 300 square km and a population of 12,000.

The scenery of the Black Isle is dominated by three fs, farmland, firths and forest. In Scotland the word forest signifies a vast tract of countryside; this is usually moorland, sometimes bare, sometimes with relics of former woodland, but often planted to a monoculture for commercial use. Forestry and Land Scotland has many holdings on the Black Isle which include one extensive area of commercial forest on the ridge of the Black Isle, which the standard OS map calls the Milbuie and Findon Forest - one name for over 35 square km of coniferous plantation. That apart, the Black Isle has numerous smaller woods, many privately owned with far less thought of an economic return from ownership, and these form a landscape patchwork partnered with the agricultural land. These woods are surprisingly diverse and acknowledged as such by some of them being Sites of Special Scientific Interest or having Significant Conservation Interest. There are woods dominated by beech, other woods dominated by oak, others dominated by birch. As expected there is woodland of firs, pines and spruces, and also plantations of Christmas Trees - a Black Isle speciality.

How to best use this article

This article provides a comprehensive survey of woodlands on the Black Isle with links to images and location maps on the Geograph website. The links are provided by clicking on individual images to open their web page. Each individual page contains a larger version of the image, a map of the local 1 km square Ordnance Survey Grid Square, the exact position from which the image was taken, the date of the image and descriptive keywords to help search through the Geograph database of over 7 million images of the British Isles. By clicking "More sizes" on the web page you can access and download the image at higher resolution. All images are copyright but may be freely used with the author's name and Geograph affiliation - JG PAREN/GEOGRAPH.

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