Cabrach Trust – Generating Positive Change
Over the course of the past year, several projects previously funded by the Dorenell Wind Farm Community Benefit Fund have come to fruition in the Cabrach, transforming the land around Inverharroch Farm to create an accessible and attractive community resource with all ability footpaths, tree and wildflower planting, ponds and interpretation.
There has been a wealth of community activity also linked to Dorenell funding including the excellent Cabrach Lives oral history project and the creation of the rural skills hub in a beautifully restored bothy. An award was also made to carry out a feasibility study and consultation about the restoration of Lower Cabrach Old School to create useful community space for the future.
The most recent award of £18,268 was to clear, prepare and make safe the walled garden area at the Old Cabrach School to create an outdoor community space for further projects.
The Old Cabrach School Walled Garden sits adjacent to the Old School Hall and House in the Lower Cabrach. This once loved asset had been neglected for many years and was overgrown and barriered off from the public due to unsafe/unsecure structures and overgrown land. Having undertaken the feasibility study focused on the restoration of the Old School Hall and House in the Lower Cabrach, the Trust was beginning to form a strategy focused on this historic place, the aim being to restore the building and bring the whole site back into community use.
An initial and essential part of this plan was to carry out a programme of works on the Walled Garden area in order to create a safe, usable space for the community to subsequently develop into a fresh community asset in the Cabrach. This package of practical enabling works involved clearing the site of old, derelict outbuildings, before clearing, levelling and
preparing the garden grounds for grass seeding, and repairing the structure of the stone wall which had been damaged over the years partly by overgrown trees etc.
The large garden area has been sown with grass seed and the hope is that this will be established quickly for summer events to take place and the area to get back to community use as soon as possible.
In the long term, themes from the feasibility study relating to outdoor space and wellbeing will be further explored with the community to inform the next phase of development in the Walled Garden. For example, the renewed community garden could be developed as a venue for events and workshops (e.g. storytelling, forest schools, or outside theatre), and/or it might support the creation of a community orchard and bee hive for 'Cabrach' grown products.
Once complete, the Walled Garden will add additional value to the restored Old School Hall & House, providing additional outside space for community events.