150 tonnes of hand-felled Scottish larch now form the foundations of the reconstructed crannog at the Scottish Crannog Centre on Loch Tay, returning an Iron Age loch dwelling to the water four years after fire destroyed the original. That is according to Douglas Halliday, niche marketing and hardwood development manager at Forestry and Land Scotland, who confirmed the timber was drawn from FLS forests to meet an exacting set of design specifications.
Hundreds of larch trees, ranging from 2 to 10 metres in length, were felled by hand to satisfy the build, with the species chosen for its water resistance and natural durability in damp ground. That choice rests on the same long-life properties durability researchers are working to map across species and climates, where performance hinges on getting the right timber into the right exposure.
The order ran across multiple FLS regions, with a larch stand at Knapdale in Argyll and Bute joined by trees at Craigvinean and Boreland in Perthshire, supplying logs of varying length and diameter. Felling an order of that scale entirely by hand brought complications, Halliday said, with weather, wildlife and protected archaeology all shaping the harvest.
“Weather, wildlife and archaeological constraints had to be managed,” Halliday said.
The Scottish Crannog Centre was destroyed by fire in 2021, and reconstruction began in May 2023, with work on the £700,000 crannog — a type of ancient artificial island — getting underway that October. The rebuilt structure anchors a wider centre that aims to deliver jobs and apprenticeships alongside research and education partnerships with schools and universities.
The centre’s site at Dalerb was secured through FLS’s Community Asset Transfer Scheme, which allows communities to take ownership of or lease land for projects that benefit them. The build also handed FLS craftsperson apprentices hands-on harvesting experience on a highly specialised job, Halliday said.
Mike Benson, managing director of the Scottish Crannog Centre, credited FLS with going well beyond the scope of the supply contract to deliver the specialist timber required for the reconstruction. For Benson, the project ties living heritage directly to the working forest.
“This is a genuine partnership in action,” Benson said.
Anchored to 150 tonnes of FLS larch and a £700,000 budget, the crannog returns to Loch Tay as what Benson calls a structure that brings history back to life.
