Episode 20 Landward

This week on Landward, Arlene and I will be continuing our electric road trip.

Why don't you join us?

Hello and a very warm welcome to Landward.

Shortly Arlene and I will be continuing our journey

along the South West 300,

a new driving route that takes in this wild,

stunning coastline plus many other delights.

And here's what else is coming up on the programme.

Anne is meeting the scientist uncovering the history

hidden in the earth.

So, this is an indicator that humans have altered the soils and have used

the soil and grown crops here.

Let's get them in the daylight.

Euan is making a find of his own at the Lanark Mart.

If these had been lost, we would never have known anything about this.

This is a priceless discovery, really.

Give it a really good shake left and right.

And Arlene strikes gold.

Oh, I've got a couple of bits!

But before that, it's time for Arlene and I to continue our journey

round the south west.

And Ailsa Craig is only one of the places we'll pass on our trip.

We're trying to manage it in an electric car.

And we've already had some bother charging it.

What's the number for,

"oh, my goodness, this is a disaster?"

What's that number?

BELL TOLLS

There it is, still here.

NARRATOR: So we're a little nervous as we begin day two.

-Shall we see if it's worked?

-Yes.

-Let's do this.

-113 glorious miles.

-We're off and running.

-It all ended well and we're off on our way.

Yeah. Could you do the voice this time?

Go straight ahead at the roundabout.

-There's a future in this for you.

-Mm-hm.

I believe this is very nice...

-..when the sun is out.

-I know.

It is a bit bleak this morning.

The initial part of our journey today

will take us from Newton Stewart

along to the Mull of Galloway and Stranraer

before our first charging stop in Girvan.

On the way, we're stopping here at

Millairies Farm in Sorbie,

where Ted Brown and his family

produce award-winning sheep's cheese.

Ah, our sheep.

There's a man standing in a field.

How are we doing? Nice to see you.

-Good to see you, Dougie.

-This is Arlene.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-How you doing?

-How are you, Ted? Nice to meet you.

We have a flock of Frieslands here that we milk and make cheese from

during the summer months, really.

Milk them once a day just, and make cheese twice a week.

You only milk them once a day - now, that was for a specific reason,

wasn't it? Just give them a happier, more enjoyable day.

No, it's because we don't want to

be spending too long milking sheep, to be honest.

-THEY LAUGH

-I believe there's another,

positive side-effect, in that working with, you know,

sheep's cheese for about 25 years,

you've got very soft hands, I believe.

-Yes.

-Can I give it a try?

-Yeah.

-Oh!

-Look at that.

-You're not really a farmer, are you?

-Look at those soft hands. For goodness' sake.

-Not really, no.

But, yes, it is a side-effect, the whey does give me nice skin.

I would recommend it.

So how does the sheep's cheese compare to, you know,

cow's milk and all the rest,

and also goat's cheese is obviously on the market these days?

Well, the thing about sheep's milk

is you can make twice as much cheese.

So ten litres of milk,

of cow's milk, you get a kilo of cheese.

The same with goats, roughly.

But you only need five litres of sheep's milk and you get a kilo of cheese.

And the cheese, it has got health benefits,

because the fat globules are so small, it's very easy to digest.

Well, I've never tried sheep's cheese.

Neither have I, I don't think.

So I'm looking forward to having a try,

-if that's all right.

-Yeah, I've got it up at the shop.

-It's quite expensive, though.

-That's all right, I've got the money.

-She's got her purse, we're OK.

-Yeah, I have. We're fine.

Now, this is a cow's cheese,

it's an organic cow's cheese, it's made from our own milk.

I'll let you try it first.

You don't have to eat it all, but

-you look pretty hungry.

-I'm taking the big bit.

Maybe try a bit myself.

Nice. Very nice.

Quite a gentle flavour, it's not too...

It's quite mild. It's new season.

Now, this is the sheep's. It's slightly older.

OK, here we go.

Oh, that's really nice.

It's much nuttier, isn't it?

I also love the texture of it.

It's more crumbly. Really lovely.

I actually need a glass of red wine now.

So I had to ask the question -

how easy is it to milk a sheep?

Well, it's much easier because there are only two teats.

We're back on the road now, heading for Stranraer.

So, we're approaching Stranraer.

There isn't a charge point in Stranraer, which I find amazing.

On my map, it says it's 24.8 miles,

and on your map, it says it's 51.3 miles.

Well, I hope your one is right

-cos we've only got 59 miles of range left.

-Yeah.

A short hop takes us up the coast and into Ayrshire.

And here we are in Ballantrae.

Lovely.

-Look, palm trees. The first time I've seen them for a while.

-Ooh!

It's the one thing I remember about coming down here on my holidays -

palm trees, because of the Gulf stream.

-This is nice.

-Are you actually going to drive on there?

-Am I allowed on here?

-I'm terrified.

I'm worried you're not going to stop.

I thought it would be nice to have a little walk along the beach,

given that it's only a few miles before we head inland again.

-Yeah.

-Might be our last chance. And look, the sun is coming out.

-The weather has not helped us.

-No, it hasn't, I think it's made everything look a little bit grey.

And there are industrial parts, with Stranraer and Girvan,

which is our next stop.

-But I still think the coastline is absolutely gorgeous.

-Beautiful.

INAUDIBLE

So, here we go.

We have Girvan approaching.

25 miles to go in terms of the charge.

Maybe we should look ahead tonight

-and see where the charging points are tomorrow.

-That's a good plan.

Or maybe we'll not bother, like we did last night.

That sun coming out has given me a little kind of shudder of happiness.

-Oh!

-It's actually the sun coming out and your promise of an ice cream.

Starting charging. This may take a moment.

-Yep, here we go.

-Yes!

Going through initial checks. Hallelujah.

-I've got a question for you.

-What?

Can I have a flake in my cone?

SHE LAUGHS

Later in the programme, we'll be heading for the hills

and the highest village in Scotland.

But we're staying on the coast for the moment, as Euan catches up

with a success story.

More than a decade ago,

we were on the spot to see Scotland's first-ever

coastal realignment project.

It may be hard to believe, but until recently, this was farmland.

But it's just been deliberately flooded to create new salt marsh,

an important wildlife habitat

that's been threatened by global warming.

I've come back to the Cromarty Firth now, to see how things turned out.

This is Nigg Bay in Easter Ross.

And like many areas round our coastline in Scotland,

this whole area has been reclaimed from the sea for grazing cattle

and crop production.

In the past, seas walls were built to keep the tide from flooding

this whole area. But in 2003,

a decision was made to put a hole in those defences to benefit wildlife,

and Landward was here to film it.

And this is where it all happens.

What they did, effectively,

was to take a JCB to the sea wall and push it out to sea.

Now, the RSPB had done all the calculations,

they'd done all the sums,

but nobody was quite sure if it would actually work.

But it has, and with a bit of salt and pepper in the hair, I'm back.

-Steph.

-Hi, Euan.

So this is your nature reserve?

That's right, yeah. So, this is the Meddat Marsh part of Nigg Bay Nature Reserve.

-NARRATOR:

-Steph Elliott from the RSPB is going to show me what their efforts

have achieved and the latest developments

they've only just completed.

Let's go see if your marsh is working.

So, back in the 1950s, this was actually rough grazing.

But prior to that, it had been a salt marsh and mudflats.

By putting two breaches in the sea wall,

we've allowed the tide to come back in and recreate those

intertidal habitats.

So this is your hole in the wall?

Yeah, so this is one of the breaches that was dug in 2003.

And it's only been here, what, 13 years?

-13, 14 years.

-It looks very much like a marsh.

It does, yeah.

So it's a real surprise to us about how quickly that has

come about.

Fair to say, the first couple of years after we put the holes

in the wall, it was a big, muddy mess

as the old vegetation died off and the new vegetation started

to take place.

But this is all salt marsh now.

So this grass is actually called salt marsh grass.

And this one is sea aster.

They're all salt-tolerant

and they're able to be covered by tides twice a day.

As are these beasties.

Yes, so that's glasswort, or samphire.

Nice, tasty thing to eat.

-It's lovely.

-Mm-hm.

-So you've got a hole in the wall.

-Yeah.

-You've got your marsh plants.

Are you getting wildlife coming?

Yes. So we've got a lot of these little shells down here.

So these are called hydrobia, or laver spire shells,

and they're a really important food for species like shelduck.

-So they like to go around the mudflats.

-There's loads of them.

So these have all come in, obviously,

since the coastal realignment was done.

We get a lot of wintering birds now using this site,

and that's really the reason that we did the project.

Nigg Bay holds about a peak count of 10,000 wintering water birds,

so that's a mixture of waders, ducks and geese,

and this field alone can hold 2,000 of those birds in the winter.

But the team haven't stopped improving the habitat.

The diggers have just been back, creating a scrape -

a man-made pond that will attract waders and wintering birds.

We actually only did this back in February.

The vegetation has come back really quickly.

Nature has sort of taken its course.

So do you get any species that have come in and had a look already?

During this breeding season, we've had two pairs of lapwing raise their young on this scrape already,

which is exactly the species of birds

that we're wanting to encourage here.

And the cows,

who might have grazed this land before the sea water was let

back in, are still getting a meal.

What we need the cattle to do is to keep the sward nice and short,

so that means that species like lapwings

can have good visibility from their nests.

We don't bring the cattle on until June, so that, actually,

the nests have already hatched by then and the chicks out up and running about

and so trampling is not a problem.

It must be quite satisfying to see nature taking over,

kind of doing its own thing.

It is really satisfying cos it's a bit of a leap of faith sometimes

to do something so drastic and then for nature to react so quickly to it

is really gratifying.

You know, it is amazing how letting nature

do exactly what it wants to can completely alter a place.

This whole place is teeming with wildlife and plants that

were here originally.

Sometimes it's a good thing to put things back the way they were.

As Euan discovered, the terrain is always changing,

frequently being altered by man in his quest to eke out an existence.

Back in the summer,

Anne visited Achlochan to meet a scientist discovering that

even in the forbidding West Highlands,

humans have been affecting the landscape for thousands of years.

The land here is very similar to the type of land where I grew up on the

Isle of Lewis - very rocky, very barren,

and I saw first-hand just how difficult it can be

to make a living from it.

But that didn't deter the ancient inhabitants of this place.

-Hello.

-Hi.

How are you doing? I'm Anne.

Nice to meet you.

I'm meeting geo-archaeologist Laura Hamlet

to find out what her research

can tell us about how our ancestors survived here and the legacy left

on the soil that could still benefit us today.

So, tell me a little bit about the land here and what it's made up of.

There's lots of little knolls which are referred to as knockans.

This is a knockan-lochan landscape,

so you've got all the wee lochans in between.

It creates a very wet kind of boggy landscape,

really good for heather and sphagnum moss, things like that.

It doesn't create particularly good soil

if you want to grow things, but within that,

we actually are finding little pockets of fertile soil that's been

improved by people.

We know that there have been people

in this landscape since the Neolithic,

so they must have been doing something to feed themselves.

And so we're looking for evidence

of past land management practice that's created

these fertile pockets of soil for people to grow.

One of these pockets can be found at Clachtoll, a busy beach today,

but at one time, a crofting township.

So, Laura, tell me a little bit about what we're seeing here.

Well, across on the peninsula there,

you can actually see the remains of agriculture in the past.

You've got a natural, sandy soil anyway,

but the people that were farming here were amending it,

so they were putting in kitchen waste, hearth waste,

all things that they understood would improve the fertility for agriculture.

-So we're talking about improved soils?

-That's right, yeah.

-Shall we go and have a look?

-Absolutely.

-Let's go.

So, Laura, would this be a man-made dyke?

Yeah, absolutely.

So we're starting to come into some of the physical evidence of land management here.

We know that people have been at Clachtoll since at least

-the Iron Age.

-OK.

But we just don't know yet what the ages are of some of the features

that we're seeing.

So we're surrounded by this quite rocky terrain,

and then we've got this uneven land.

Is this typical?

Is this deliberate? Can you tell me a little bit...?

This is definitely deliberate.

A huge amount of hard work went into building these.

They're called lazy beds,

but that is a misnomer cos it's anything but lazy

to create these things.

Whole communities, whole families would get together and build them.

They would build up the land into banks like this,

and that really improves the drainage.

So that means you've created an artificial terrace.

It's very green. A lot of the landscape here reminds me

of where I grew up,

but is this greenery typical of this sort of land?

Absolutely not.

So, we've seen around us a very marshy, boggy landscape,

but here, we've got the input of the shell sand

coming up to create an almost kind of machair-type landscape.

But it's also got the benefit of the amendment of organic material as well.

So this is very much a man-made soil.

Also working on the study is Louisa Habermann.

The lazy beds may have been unworked for centuries..

OK. And there we go.

..but she's discovering the story they still have to tell us.

Anne, this is my colleague, Louisa.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-Nice to meet you.

How are you doing? Tell me about the samples here that you've dug up.

So today we have a fantastic example

of culture soil because this gives us

an indication of if the soil has been worked on.

So we can see that we have, at the first start,

a very highly organic soil, and then we find in-blown sands,

which are quite typical for the Northwest Highlands.

And then the further down we look at the soil profile,

we also find charcoal, which is absolutely fantastic.

So this is an indicator that humans have altered the soils

through additions and fertilisers

and have used the soil and grown crops here.

Who exactly would this research benefit?

It's basically the community itself and land managers.

Even, like, the Government. If they're looking forward to producing new maps of

how fertile this land is.

Because at the moment, this land in the Northwest Highlands,

the whole area has been labelled

as non-prime and only workable for rough grazing and grasses,

which is not true at all.

I mean, we can see here that this soil is perfectly fine

and can be used for agricultural use.

Beneath the ground in these pockets of land,

all over this area is an important soil resource which we're only just

beginning to understand.

What's discovered here may be useful to how we use

and look after the land in future.

And now, Euan is also digging around some history.

He's in Lanark, where the discovery of some very old pictures is causing

great excitement at the mart.

-Morning.

-Morning.

How you getting on today? All right?

-NARRATOR:

-It's a busy day here at the Lanark Mart.

The annual two-day sale of Blackface shearling

and ram lambs is getting underway.

-Willie.

-Hi.

That's some pair of horns, Isn't it?

Isn't it? Aye. They're really hardy boys, these.

Auctioneer Willie McCulloch is casting his expert eye

over the best of the breed.

People want them to look as hardy as possible because these are the hill breed.

So they might not be, but the horns give it that kind of...?

-The horns...

-..macho look.

Aye, gives them the macho look. They've got to look the part as well.

These are shearlings that have been clipped once.

They are last year's lambs.

Great. But that's not why we're here,

cos you've made a bit of a discovery, haven't you?

-I did, I did.

-Go and show me.

-OK.

As the auctions get underway,

Willie leads me to the hidden treasure.

-So, how did you find them?

-I found them in this cupboard here.

By accident?

By accident. I was just rummaging about one day and I kind of looked

and they were covered. There was an old kind of table cover or whatever.

It was in here.

-It is a wee cupboard.

-And just sitting over in the corner,

covered up with an old sheet and all the other debris.

-It is a wee cupboard as well.

-It is.

-Wow.

-I know.

Willie had discovered a forgotten treasure trove

of rare photographs and documents

stretching back to the very beginning

of the mart's 150-year history.

-You get it?

-That's us. Thank you.

Let's get them in the daylight.

Well, we've got them out on a bench. Already it's attracting a lot of interest, isn't it?

-It is. There's a lot of people round about them.

-These are fantastic.

They're a million miles from the ones that are in the ring there.

Definitely. You can see how what we saw this morning,

how a lot of their coats were what you call bare or shorter coats,

compared to what these are, these are really woolly.

Cos you've got that one, that Blackface ram, Saul.

-Aye, I know.

-It's got a duvet on it.

It is, it is. You know, imagine that trailing on the ground.

That's not practical. Imagine getting that ready for a show.

These ones here, is that 1898?

That's 1898.

This one here was 55.

£50, £165 -

which was a lot of money in these days -

£80 and £40.

And they grossed £390.

So even in those days, these were valuable sheep.

-They are, they are.

-That's fantastic, that one. Love that.

That is. That's a great picture. That's a great picture.

-Just oozing attitude.

-It says here, "First prize, early clipped."

-They don't look early clipped.

-We've got people round here...

-We have, we have.

-..which is presenting a bigger challenge.

Yes, it is. Yes, it is.

These first two photographs were believed to be the first staff

of the New Lanark Market in 1867.

-This is the first customers.

-These are the first customers.

And this gentleman here, David Ogilvy of Rottal,

was the first purchaser of Blackface lambs.

I didn't know where Rottal Farm was.

I did a bit of delving and it turns out to be Kirriemuir.

-That's a long way from home, then.

-A long way from home,

and I'm assuming they would get the sheep back by train.

If they had to walk them, it would take them a long, long time.

How important are these to the mart?

This is very important. This is our history.

If these had been lost, we would never have known anything about this.

This is a priceless discovery, really, for us.

And it is a great opportunity for

the people here today to reflect on how

things have changed.

Wool was worth a lot of money in these days,

so therefore they wanted a lot of wool on the sheep.

The wool clip used to pay the shepherd's wage.

And now the wool will hardly pay for somebody coming to clip them.

These horns are down.

The horns now, you'll see, they're up on the top.

You know where they come out?

-It's like...

-Aye, just on the top.

The likes of these are completely different.

I've seen you at the Highland Show

trying to get just that perfect shot

of a cow or a sheep or whatever.

That one, look at the composition there.

You've got the middle sheep looking right down the lens.

-Yes.

-Is that clever, or has it been tinkered with?

I don't think it will have been tinkered with.

-Yeah...

-They've just probably worked very hard getting them

to stand right.

-It's an absolutely gorgeous picture.

-Beautiful.

There's no doubt that this archive

gives us a valuable insight into both

the farmers and the beasts they produced.

Now, fashions might have changed,

but there's something strangely familiar about this.

The excitement, the high prices,

and it's not difficult to imagine what it was like at that first mart

at Lanark in 1867.

Arlene and I are on the last stretch of our trip around the south west

in our electric car.

ARLENE LAUGHS

After the delights of the Ayrshire coast, we're moving inland,

and the terrain has changed.

This is a great road to drive. It's full of bends, it's brilliant.

Yeah, great, unless there's a car coming the other way.

I'm being very safe.

That's why those smells are appearing in the car.

We're making our way to charge up in New Cumnock,

and fortunately for us, the landscape is helping out.

The battery recharges when travelling downhill.

Which is just as well,

as we don't seem to have completely cracked operating

the charging stations yet.

-This side... What side has gone blue?

-The wrong side has gone blue.

Yeah, I think there's either an issue, or you've pressed the wrong button.

-Shall we try again?

-Yes.

Now, as a result of me pressing the right buttons twice,

or maybe the wrong button once, it's now working.

And the great news is, I take milk with no sugar.

He's an idiot.

And it doesn't get any better when he gets back behind the wheel.

THEY LAUGH

I may have been driving for a little bit there with the handbrake on.

These things happen.

We're at our next stop - the highest village in Scotland.

1,531 feet.

Wanlockhead.

So today's excursion is gold panning.

Cos I believe this, the hills

and surrounding areas are quite rich in gold.

Yeah, lead and gold.

This was one of the centres for mining in Scotland.

And introducing us to the secrets of gold panning,

here on the banks of the River Mennock, is Leon Kirk.

How are you, sir? Good to see you.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-How are you?

How are you? Great to see you.

You too. Are you well? This is Arlene.

Hi, Arlene, how are you?

-Nice to meet you.

-In for a bit of gold, are we?

Oh, always. They don't call me gold digger for nothing.

Leon has been panning for gold here for over 20 years,

and it's lost none of its lustre.

There's just something about it. Every flake still makes me smile.

It's seeing people come to the area,

new people taking up the hobby.

Well, I'm looking forward to it and I'm looking for a bracelet at the

-end of this.

-Girls are better than boys, trust me.

Is that right?

I'm just going to suck up some gravel,

and we'll go up to a nice quiet pool and we will have a try.

-How about that?

-Perfect.

And we're going to have to shake it to get all the heavy minerals to the bottom.

OK, so if you just follow what I'm doing. In the water...

..and just left to right...

..until the gravel is almost touching the palm of your hands.

Give it a really good shake left and right.

And all the lighter materials are now coming to the top.

A licence is required to pan here from the Lead Mining Museum.

And you'll need the landowner's permission

to have a go anywhere else in Scotland.

Oh, I've got a couple of bits!

Three bits. There you go.

DOUGIE LAUGHS

See this big bit of gold there?

That's...

Now, Leon, was that not the biggest bit you've found for a while?

Yes, for a long while.

NARRATOR: Beginner's luck, surely.

However, Leon shows us what experience and patience can uncover.

You absolutely nailed it, you're a natural.

-Thank you.

-But I'm not going to try and spoil your day,

but I've got some that I've previously found.

-SHE LAUGHS Wow.

-Oh come on!

-SHE GASPS

-If you keep at it, you'll eventually get there.

-Goodness me.

-They've been found in there?

They've been found in Scotland. That's as much as I'm going to tell you.

They're all Scottish natural nuggets.

I thought what we could do is have a swap -

-so you take that one and I'll take these.

-There you go.

-Thank you. It has been a pleasure.

-I tell you, I wouldn't do that.

Listen, She's off to the car.

Exactly. Call the police.

Not necessarily.

Back on the roads, Arlene has time to admire her tiny speck

-of precious metal.

-My gold.

Are you going to phone a jeweller?

-SHE LAUGHS

-I should.

Yes. What can they do with that?

Well, it's pretty much downhill all the way...

Ah!

..as I take us back to where we began the South West 300.

And here we are - Dumfries.

The end of the journey.

Queen of the South.

Yes. It's been a great little journey, hasn't it?

It has been fantastic.

-We made it.

-Some hiccups along the way.

Just one or two.

But I think South West 300 is a really nice route.

-It is.

-And I think there were elements of it,

the landscape kept changing, and I really loved it,

especially the Solway Coast for me.

Beautiful.

Quite a good trip. Would you do it again?

Not with you, no.

THEY LAUGH

I'm sure she doesn't mean it really.

Next week, I'm flying solo,

discovering the true story of Rob Roy...

His name was all over the landscape, and still is.

..while Euan is tracking down sparrowhawks...

These feathers almost act like human fingerprints.

Three, two, one.

..and Arlene is on a dolphin rescue exercise.

So please join us for that and much more at the same time next week.

Remember, Monday night, 7:30 on BBC One Scotland.

In the meantime, from all the Landward team,

thank you so much for your company. Bye for now.