Episode 13 Landward

It may be autumn but the weather is just fine

so no excuses for staying indoors.

On Landward, we love an Indian summer.

Hello and a very warm welcome to the programme.

This week, I'm in Plockton, where I'll be finding out about

efforts to improve our wildlife and wild places.

But first, here's what else is coming up in the next 30 minutes.

Sarah's on the Mull of Galloway, visiting one of Scotland's

smallest community buyouts...

This is the lantern area.

-Wow.

-Modern lantern now.

-What a view. Amazing.

-Amazing, isn't it?

..Euan visits a kitchen garden that's making a difference...

By coming here, like, it builds their confidence,

it makes them feel dead proud of the things that they can achieve.

..and Nick and I continue our West Coast culinary odyssey.

So, here we go. Four lovely individual pieces of hogget

ready for roasting in the oven.

But first, I need to get some ingredients for Nick to cook with.

Competition is tough in the food industry

so farmers need to use any advantage they can get.

I've come to Shellfield Farm on the Argyll coast to meet

one young farmer who is using the best of what he's got to put

a new slant on an old favourite.

-Fraser, how are you doing?

-Hi, Dougie. How are things?

-Great.

Good to see you. It's a fantastic part of the country, this.

-It really is, isn't it?

-And a bonny farm.

-It really is, yeah.

It's special.

Fraser Brown is using his farm's coastal location to produce

some uniquely flavoured meat.

He rears his lamb not only on grass but also on the tidal salt marsh

and he's going to show me how he does it.

His family have been farming here for over 100 years but Fraser

and his wife Nikki only took over the farm in 2012

when his uncle retired.

What experience did you have at that point?

Very little but a lot of youth on my side, let's put it that way.

That's about it. And enthusiasm.

So how big is the farm?

It's just over 2,000 acres,

and we've got about 450 sheep and 20 cattle.

-Now, I'm here to talk about salt marshes.

-Yeah.

-Is this them here?

It's the start of it

-and then it works its way all the way up to the head of the loch.

-OK.

-Shall we go have a look?

-Sure.

-Let's do it.

The salt marsh sits between the land and the open sea.

Flooded twice daily with saltwater,

it supports herbs, grasses and shrubs not found in Fraser's fields.

It's these mineral-rich plants that the sheep graze on,

giving their meat its unique flavour.

So how does this actually work, then?

So we move sheep on and off the salt marsh throughout the year

depending on grass and just to obviously get them as best as

we can for the end product, basically.

Do you have to be careful with tide times?

We're pretty good. They're pretty clever, the sheep, actually.

It beggars belief sometimes.

But, no, they seem to know when to get off.

It's only in the winter time that we have to really give them

a bit of help if it comes in quick.

So they follow the tide as it goes out and graze out there.

Pretty much, yeah.

And do you think they prefer to graze out here compared to

-here in the field with just normal grass?

-Yeah, I think so.

I mean, it's all the diversity of food and they're looking for

minerals as well. They get natural salt

and that really comes through in the flavour of the meat as well.

Yeah, they certainly seem

-pretty keen to get down there, don't they?

-Yeah.

Fraser got the idea from a neighbouring farmer who used

to raise livestock on the Kent salt marshes and told him of

the effect it had on the flavour of the meat.

Since then, he hasn't looked back.

It just kind of became apparent when we tried our own lamb

that it was really different so we tried it out at

a couple of local shows and it really took off

so it was a natural progression for us

to try and make the best out of what we've got.

The lambs here don't look particularly chunky.

No, they're not. They're really naturally grown.

There are not pushed and we don't like to put too much fat on them

because we're just trying to sell fat then and that's not

something we want to do. We want to produce something

with great flavour that everyone can enjoy.

So is it a saltier flavour? Is it a more intense flavour?

How would you describe it?

It definitely has salty notes through it.

It just has a completely different flavour to your supermarket lamb.

That's all I can say.

Until you try it, you can't really compare it to anything.

Well, the sheep certainly seem to be thriving on their seaside diet

and I'm looking forward to seeing what effect it has

when Nick and I try it out on the unsuspecting tourists

in one of Scotland's bonniest car parks.

This is a very different flavour, isn't it?

But before that, we head further down the coast for a story of

a community buyout with a difference.

Recently, a quite unusual property came onto the market

and, as Sarah discovers, the locals just had to have it.

If you venture south of Stranraer, south of Portpatrick and even

further south than Port Logan,

eventually you reach Scotland's most southerly point,

the Mull of Galloway.

On a clear day, you can see Northern Ireland over there

and down that way is the Isle of Man

but right here is the Mull of Galloway Lighthouse,

built by Robert Stevenson in 1828,

grandfather of the author Robert Louis.

In 2011, the Northern Lighthouse Board decided to sell this site,

apart from the tower, which they still own and operate.

But long before that, it had already become a popular tourist attraction.

We had a local trust here from the late 1990s

who ran tours up the tower from 2004.

In 2009, we opened up the Lighthouse Exhibition.

Maureen Chand is the chairperson of the Mull of Galloway Trust.

When we heard in 2011 that the Northern Lighthouse Board

were going to be selling off all the property here, we thought,

well, that might have quite

an impact on visitors coming to the area.

If you get private individuals buying the cottages, it would

be a nightmare with access, parking,

and if a developer came in, I think that would be horrendous.

So we decided to look at a community buyout and that's how it started.

With the help of a grant from the Scottish Land Fund,

the trust bought the site for almost £300,000.

They still run the exhibition and tours of the tower

and the old keepers' cottages are rented out as holiday lets.

How do you do, Sarah?

-Welcome to the Mull of Galloway Lighthouse.

-Thank you.

'But it's about time I checked out the main attraction.'

-It's all the way up so let's go for it.

-The only way is up.

'Trust member Alec Peebles is giving me the tour.'

How many steps?

-115. About halfway.

-Halfway.

Ooh. This is it.

-Yeah, this is the lantern area.

-Wow.

-Modern lantern now.

-What a view. Amazing.

-Amazing, isn't it?

That is fantastic, isn't it? What a sight.

-Ebb tides running there.

-How old is the lighthouse?

It was built in 1828 and commissioned in 1830.

Built by Stevenson, the Stevenson family of lighthouse...

-Very famous, of course.

-Very famous, yes.

And how would it have been built?

Basically it was a concrete foundation but they started

with almost a jigsaw puzzle of granite blocks interlocking

with each other so that they weren't relying on mortar,

the actual granites were locked together,

gradually tapering as they come up to this level.

But for Alec, it's about more than clever engineering.

Well, I'm here because my grandfather came here as

principal lighthouse keeper in 1917.

I mean, the perception is that sort of

a lighthouse keeper's life was quite a harsh, solitary existence.

What would it have been like?

It could be, depending.

If you were on a rock light, three of you on your own,

you couldn't take your family,

you were there for a month, two months at a time,

but this was a very good posting because three houses,

three families, you could have your family, your children.

School is only three miles down the road.

They had their own horse and cart, they kept goats.

There's the garden that they had all their produce,

which we're now trying to bring back to some semblance.

This was a lovely place, I would think.

Since the buyout, the cottage lets are proving very popular,

the museum opening hours have increased and visitor numbers

are going up each year.

Who knows what would have happened to the site if the community

hadn't taken that risk and bought it?

It is a stunning spot and I can see why they wanted to protect it.

I suppose the real challenge now is for them to make enough money

to support it and inspire the next generation to keep it going.

Now, further up the coast in Wester Ross,

there's a very special type of ecosystem.

It's a temperate rainforest and I've come to Balmacara to meet

the people trying to protect it.

A couple of weeks ago,

the State of Nature Report was published.

It's a snapshot of the wildlife present in Scotland today.

What it's telling us is that 53% of our species are in decline

and some may disappear altogether.

But apart from all the maps and the graphs and the charts,

what's it actually telling us on the ground,

and can anything be done to turn around this worrying trend?

One of the report's authors is Deborah Long of Plant Life Scotland.

-How are you?

-Hi, Dougie. Good to see you.

-Good to see you, too.

Now, tell me about this report. Why was it written in the first place?

Well, this is the second report.

We produced the first report in 2013 and then we produced this one

three years later just to see what the situation,

-if the situation had changed at all.

-Yeah.

Sadly what we've found is that it hasn't.

Species are still declining across Scotland and across all

countries in the UK, in fact, and this report is an objective

assessment of what's happening to species on the ground in Scotland.

Now, you represent the plant wildlife in Scotland.

Why is it particularly worrying that they're in decline?

Well, the reason it is particularly worrying is because plants are

at the bottom of all ecosystems

so everything depends on plants at one point or another.

There's a really good ecosystem just down the road where you can see

all the species diversity there

-so we're going to have a look at that now.

-OK. Let's do it.

-OK.

Before we see some of the problems, we're going to visit one of

the most undisturbed areas of this native forest, Coille Mhor.

-This is brilliant, this bit here.

-Yeah.

-It's exactly what we were looking for.

-Uh-huh. What is this, then?

This is tree lungwort.

This is a lichen that's really characteristic of Celtic rainforest.

If you see this, you know you're

in a really good bit of Celtic rainforest.

In a typical ravine on the West Coast of Scotland,

where you've got trees and rocks and a little burn

just like you've got here,

and you counted the number of species within a square metre,

you'd have the same number of species

as you would in a tropical rainforest.

-Really? As many as that?

-That's how species-rich it is.

-There will be thousands of species on here.

-Goodness.

-Let's head down to the burn, shall we?

-OK.

It's easy to take this kind of place for granted but even on

a global scale, it's very special.

You wouldn't find this in many other places in the world.

We've got quite a lot of it in Scotland on the West Coast.

They've got a bit in Ireland and then you'd be looking at the Azores,

the Canary Islands and the West Coast of the Americas. That's it.

That's the only place where you get this diversity

in this type of woodland.

It's one of the biggest areas in the world for this habitat

so that's why we need to protect it.

But although Coille Mhor is a protected area,

it's not entirely the pristine wilderness it seems.

Parts of this ecosystem are under attack from a very man-made problem.

This is rhododendron ponticum, a creation of Victorian plantsmen.

It may look pretty in spring and summer but it's become a monster.

Its spread has become one of

the biggest ecological issues facing Scotland.

It's probably the number one invasive species problem in

the north-west and west of Britain.

Rob Dewar of the National Trust for Scotland has spent years

trying different ways of eradicating the dreaded ponticum.

As you can see, the mosses here are thriving on the outside of

this bush where there's a light coming in but once the canopy

closes with rhododendron ponticum, it doesn't allow any light into

the ground and so everything is basically killed off.

But Rob and his team are drilling down to the roots of the problem.

Well, this is a technique called stem treatment which is

a fairly new technique for us to use

and it's more environmentally friendly,

it's very efficient and it's a very targeted use of herbicide.

Traditionally, rhododendron control has involved lots of chainsaws,

cutting down the bush, burning the debris,

whereas the stem treatment is very targeted,

so it goes right down to the roots, it's systemic and it doesn't cause

any other damage to other plants in the woodland.

-This is clearly a big issue that needs controlling.

-Definitely.

It was the Victorians that introduced it,

but we're 100 years down the line and now it's a major disaster,

really, for the environment so we must carry on tackling it.

Stem treatment has been proven to be 99% effective and landowners

across the country are being encouraged to use this method

to tackle rhododendron ponticum -

one step to help save Scotland's biodiversity.

Now, we may only be on your screens for half an hour per week but

you can keep the conversation going 24/7 if you wish

on our Facebook page.

And this summer, many of you did just that,

telling us which beach you think is the best in Scotland.

Donna Deans, Jenny Watson and Jenny Morrison

all nominated this beach, Sandend,

which sits on the Banffshire Coast

between Cullen and Portsoy.

The village of Sandend dates back to the 1600s and is one of

the oldest fishing villages on the Banffshire coast.

It gets its name from the long, sandy beach

and is a haven for surfers.

In fact, it has some of the best waves in the country

and is known as Cornwall without the crowds.

And that's cold.

When the surf has exhausted you, and it has,

it's worthwhile taking a walk along the beach for a step back in time.

These structures here are remnants of anti-tank positions built during

the Second World War to protect this whole beach from invasion.

Thankfully, there's no risk of invasion today

so if you're in the area, why not stop by?

And you can tell us which beach you think is the best

by going to the Landward Facebook page or e-mail...

And now we're heading to a Georgian estate in Angus.

Euan's visiting the House of Dun.

The grand Georgian house and its resplendent garden.

Formality and symmetry, show and display.

But around the back,

they're using the kitchen garden for a very practical purpose,

helping people bring order back into their own lives.

-Gary.

-How are you doing?

-Fantastic day you've laid on for us.

-Aye, it's good, yeah.

-What's going on?

There's a whole hive of activity.

Yeah, what we've got is we've got people from all over Angus

who are involved in growing fruit and vegetables.

Gary Malone works with the charity Voluntary Action Angus

and they are helping provide work placements for people

who've experienced mental health problems.

You know, there's a lot of people who feel isolated and lonely

and feel they've got nothing to get up for and by coming here,

like, it builds their confidence,

it makes them feel dead proud of the things that they can achieve.

I grew up in a community in Dundee called Lochee and both my parents

were psychiatric nurses

so they'd worked in the Royal Dundee Liff Hospital all their working life

and at that time people were institutionalised,

they were there forever.

But now we're seeing something totally different.

This is about empowering people to be more in control of their

own health and contribute to their communities,

no matter what background they come from.

-Have you seen changes in people?

-Massive. Absolutely massive.

People tell you their own stories about what they used to do

and what they're doing now and that's probably the best

evidence, that people are saying, "My life's a lot better.

"I'm hardly at the doctor now. I don't rely on the tablets,"

and stuff like that. And that's an absolutely priceless thing.

For volunteer David Watson,

the garden has made a huge difference to his life.

I worked up in Cawdor Castle for near about 13 years

and I had mental health problems so I had to quit.

I was just lying in my bed and sitting about watching the TV

-all day and that sort of stuff.

-Depression?

-Yeah, aye.

-So, do you notice a benefit from the point of view of depression?

-Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I get a lot better sleep.

Is that just cos you're tired or you're happier with life?

Yeah, just happier with life.

Just happy at the end of the day, being out, doing a bit and helping

other people. I'm starting to do a bit of mentoring as well.

So you're taking charge.

Yeah. It helps me and, as I say,

I don't look forward to the rainy days, but days like this,

this makes me happy, getting out.

Well, we'd better get a move on cos these are going to bite.

-Mark.

-Hi. How are you doing?

-Hi. I'm Euan.

-Euan, pleased to meet you.

-Courgettes.

-Courgettes, yes.

The garden has also been a lifeline to Mark Adamson.

So, were you depressed before? What happened?

Yeah, I went through a bad patch in my life,

breaking up with the fiancee and stuff like that and...

this has just been...great for me.

Were you struggling to cope at that point?

Yeah, I was. I was in and out of hospital but it's been...

I've not been back in since I started here.

So, why? What is so special about coming here?

It's just a great atmosphere and you can see what you've done.

You know, everything's grown from seed,

there's no cheating, as I call it, buying it from the garden centre.

-A fair bit of tying up to do there, though.

-I know.

-They keep falling down as well.

-I won't hold you back.

I'll let you get on with it.

-It's just the weight of the foliage, you know.

-Success.

Success for the plants and success for the project.

But that is not the end of the story,

as support worker Barry Thomson explains.

-One box of vegetables.

-Yeah.

-So where do they go to?

Well, the vegetables,

they get picked and some of them go down to the house, to the kitchen.

Also some of the volunteers that we've got here, for example,

one or two of them live in a sheltered complex,

they'll take the vegetables back and distribute them around

the sheltered complex as well. And anything that is left over,

we take back to the volunteer centre in between Arbroath and Forfar

as well and they get used, handed out for anyone that's coming.

-It's used as a food bank.

-So nothing goes to waste.

-Nothing goes to waste, no, if we can help it.

-Soup in the cafe, is there?

Aye, it's good soup as well.

Right, I'm going to go and make some soup.

-Preference for a colour of a cup, girls and boys?

-Red, please.

Red, coming up.

Once this productive garden would have fed a privileged few.

Now, through sheer hard work, it feeds many.

But, more importantly,

it gives the folk who work here a sense of purpose and control.

Earlier in the programme, I was in Glendaruel in Argyll,

where Fraser Brown rears his lamb on salt marshes.

Now it's time to get a taste of that lamb,

as resident chef Nick Nairn and I

continue our West Coast culinary tour.

'This week, we're parking up in a lay-by

'but this is no ordinary lay-by.'

All righty?

Today, we're in one of the bonniest car parks in the country

on the A82 just north of Bridge of Orchy.

It's beautiful, it's fresh, it's glorious, but what are we cooking?

Well, we were meant to be cooking salt marsh lamb.

-Yes, Fraser...

-You promised me salt marsh lamb.

I can hear Fraser arriving so that's good news. Very good news.

-You've cut this tight.

-Very tight indeed. How are you, Fraser?

-Good to see you.

-I'm good. How are you doing, Dougie?

-Very well.

-This is Nick.

-Hi.

-Nice to meet you.

-Nice to meet you.

-So, the lamb.

-There's some fresh ones in the back, but...

-Really?

They might be a touch on the fresh side for our purposes.

This is not oven-ready.

-We're not cooking that.

-They're a bit fresh.

-Do you have some oven-ready?

-Oven-ready would be very good, yes.

-Fantastic.

-OK, guys.

-Whole leg of lamb.

-Beautiful. Listen, Fraser,

-it's been an absolute joy. Great to see you.

-Well, I hope you enjoy it.

He's going to work his magic. Good to see you again.

-Thank you very much indeed.

-Take care.

-Thank you. Cheers.

-See you later.

-Good man.

-So, here is a beautiful looking piece of meat.

-Wow, wow, wow.

-A whole leg.

-Now, I believe this is hogget and not lamb.

-Is that right?

-That's correct.

-So what does that mean?

Well, lamb is less than 12 months old.

Once it's over 12 months old, it's hogget.

Once it's three years old, it's mutton.

And the flavour of hogget, is it more intense?

Yeah. Hogget, for me, it's the nirvana of lamb.

And a leg of lamb is a delicious thing to roast whole,

but what we're going to do is break this down,

we're going to seam bone it.

We're going to break this down into four pieces of lamb.

So a little bit of butchery here.

I'll let you get on with that cos I'm completely useless

-as far as that's concerned.

-You're not a fan of the knife, no.

So we're going to just start down here and make a wee cut.

Up here.

That's taking a while.

I'll stoke the oven in the meantime.

That'll be the hairs on my arms gone. Ouch-ah.

So, here we go.

Four lovely individual pieces of hogget

ready for roasting in the oven.

Marvellous. Absolutely marvellous.

We're going to start them, first of all in a pan.

We've got the pan heating up, which is why we've got the trays there.

Keep the wind off it. Yes, indeed.

But before we do that, we're just don't add a little bit of

flavour in here so if I make some holes in here, just a little stab.

One, two, three, four, five.

-Could you poke some rosemary in those holes...

-Yes, indeedy.

..for me? There we go. A couple of little bits of garlic as well.

So we're doing it really quite

straightforward and simple

because I want to see if people

can tell the difference between

salt marsh lamb and ordinary lamb.

What we're going to do now is a little bit of olive oil

over the outside

and season with salt and pepper.

So into the pan, nice little bit of a sizzle.

We'll get a bit of colour on.

The oven's at about 210 degrees centigrade.

-They'll take about 12-15 minutes to cook.

-Right, OK.

So, let's turn these. OK.

And...into the oven.

-You know, Scotland is a really bonny place, isn't it?

-It's beautiful.

It is extraordinary.

How often do you take the time to sit down and just look at it?

Not often enough.

-Did you bring any wine?

-DOUGIE LAUGHS

Sadly not.

Oh, my goodness. Ready already! Dougie!

-Oh!

-Oh, look at that.

-It is ready.

-This is going to be amazing.

-So out it comes.

This has had 15 minutes' resting time but when I carve into it,

you'll see it's nice and pink inside, OK?

But the juices aren't running out onto the board.

-So...

-Thank you very much.

-..time to taste.

Straight away...

I mean, almost ridiculously good.

The flavour...

-the texture.

-The texture is incredible.

-The flavour's extraordinary.

-Yeah.

You and I both agree that is fantastic.

But what about the visitors to Scotland

that are outside Glencoe here? What will they make of it?

My worry is that they're getting in their car,

they're taking the photograph

and they're going up the road to Glencoe.

We must make them stop. We must make them appreciate this. It's amazing.

Let's go.

Now, can I interest you in a little bit of...

This is salt marsh hogget.

This is a very special Scottish lamb from a salt marsh.

-See what you think.

-Thank you.

-Local hogget?

-It is certainly Scottish, yes.

-Beautiful.

-Isn't it good?

-Absolutely beautiful.

Do you taste the difference, the flavour from the salt marsh?

Delicious.

We don't know what marsh means.

It's... So the... It's where the sea meets the land.

Lovely. It's almost like steak, actually.

Where the river meets the sea?

Where the sea meets the beach.

-So what do you think?

-It's quite melty in the middle.

Is that more flavoursome than Aussie lamb?

I don't know if we can... Off the record.

You might have to turn the camera off.

It's delicious. It's a very different flavour, isn't it?

-It is a big flavour, isn't it?

-Mm!

It feels like it's got heaps of gravy on it

-but it hasn't, obviously.

-Yeah.

The sheep graze on the seaweed by the shore.

How does that compare to the lamb you've had before?

It's much softer.

And, yeah, it kind of tastes fruity.

The flavour is rich.

Nick, everybody I spoke to, bar the two vegetarians,

absolutely adored it.

I had a very similar response.

I think people sometimes struggle a little bit to understand

the complexity of the difference between lamb and hogget

and the fact that its diet was different.

-But what they all said was it tasted fantastic.

-It certainly did.

We loved it and they loved it as well and that's all we

have time for, this programme.

Here's what's coming up next time around.

Sarah celebrates 50 years of Buddhism in Scotland...

(I don't know why I'm whispering.

(I haven't been told to whisper but I just feel like I should whisper.)

..we serve up another tasty treat at Ganavan Sands...

That is a great thing.

Thank you very much indeed. Another satisfied customer.

-..and Euan flares up...

-Try and keep it together.

..to help train police horses.

So join us again next Friday, 19:30, BBC ONE Scotland.

From one of the bonniest lay-bys in all of Scotland,

-thank you so much for your company. Goodbye.

-Bye.