Smeaton Lake woodland management plan

This Landscape Management Plan was jointly funded by the National Tree Collections of Scotland (NTCS) and Smeaton Estate in East Lothian. 

Nigel worked with the woodland and access design consultant Donald McPhillimy on the Plan during 2012-13. The plan sets out practical management recommendations to help ensure the future wellbeing of the woodlands that surround Smeaton Lake. As part of the survey, visitors to the woodlands were interviewed and their comments taken into account in the management recommendations.

The lake dates from 1830, when Sir Thomas Buchan Hepburn excavated a former bog, and took advantage of the shelter and humidity to establish a collection of conifers. Since then, the trees at Smeaton have been regularly visited and recorded by several eminent horticulturalists, including Alan Mitchell, Donald Roger and Dr Owen Johnson.

Smeaton is one of a number of sites which, as part of the International Conifer Conservation Programme (an initiative for the conservation of endangered conifers which is based at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh), provide land for breeding groups of conifers to assist re-introduction back into the wild.

Click here to view management plan.