Join Our Woodland Community Today
Support local nature and community through volunteering efforts.
Join Our Woodland Community Today
Support local nature and community through volunteering efforts.
Protecting the Planet Together
Thank you
Dear Friends and Neighbours
In 2016 the local community purchased land on and around Gallow Hill and formed the Moffat Community Woodlands charity.
Since then a once bare hillside has been transformed into a thriving woodland, home to a wide variety of plants and wildlife and enjoyed by many people in the town.
Thank you to everyone who shared their ideas and suggestions during our recent consultation. Your feedback will help guide how the woodlands are cared for and developed in the years ahead.
Volunteer Day on the 15th March has been cancelled as the team hadn't regisitered it was Mothering Sunday and we're sure youll have other things on! See you on the 19th April.
Contact Us
We welcome feedback, questions, and partnership opportunities. Reach out to us via email.
Discover Moffat Woodlands
Our Mission
At Moffat Community Woodland, our mission is to promote sustainable practices while enhancing community engagement. We believe in creating a space that fosters education, relaxation, and healthy living for everyone.
Our Story
Gallow Hill, which had been planted as a commercial forest for around a century, was clear-felled again in 2014. The owners offered the land to the local community, and a small group of residents began to formulate plans to purchase the site and to restock with native broadleaf trees. A series of increasingly well attended public meetings were held in 2015, to establish levels of support, and to gather ideas about land use in a new community woodland. A community group was established which conducted a feasibility study, undertook a wider public consultation and found no major obstacle to the community acquisition of the land. The community group transformed into a SCIO (a formally constituted charity), and with the aid of the Scottish Land Fund, completed the purchase in 2016.
The real excitement started in April 2017 when a frenetic period of planning led to agreement with Forestry & Land Scotland, ordering of thousands of trees, and planting beginning at the start of May 2017 – the first trees were put in by an enthusiastic group of around 80 volunteers, followed by the first tranche of stocking by our brilliant contractors. More than a dozen tree species were stocked, the most numerous being sessile oak. As well as initial planting, the trees needed to be checked on an ongoing basis to ensure stakes are secure, tubes tied tight, and trees upright.
Initial funding for the work was through a number of grant applications, but things came to a bit of a halt about halfway through as grants dried up. As COVID hit in 2020, things picked up again through some tree donations, and a partnership with a carbon offset broker. Apart from the most restrictive periods of lockdown, we were able to get small groups of volunteers out planting rather than stuck at home, and our contractors were able to work again after a period of inactivity.
Apart from the trees, our community engagement process had told us what people wanted to see on the hill – and we set out to provide just that! There are still some aspirations unmet, due mainly to funding, but we have provided picnic benches, items of play equipment, a shelter / meeting point, and an ornamental welcome gate in the beechwood. The consensus was that any amenity development should be both limited and sympathetic to the environment – people wanted a woodland first and foremost.
The final tree was planted in 2023, the original stocking is flourishing, and we have begun a process of removing plastic tree guards where appropriate, as part of our maintenance work.
Our Woodland in pictures
