All language subtitles for Scotland from the Sky Series 2 2of3 BBC 1080p_ENG_Subtitles01

Scotland is one of
the most beautiful,

most photographed countries
in the world.

And for me, it's a place best seen
from the sky.

It's absolutely stunning,
seeing it from this angle.

Not something you get to do
every day.

This viewpoint
always has the power to astound.

The view from above isn't just about
spectacular mountains

and dramatic castles...

..the view from above
offers a whole new way

of understanding our history.

Much of Scotland
might seem a natural wilderness

but almost all of this
has been transformed by people.

In this episode, I want to explore
how the view from the air

offers clues to how we've lived off
the land over thousands of years.

From ancient fields
on remote islands...

It's on edge, isn't it?
Next stop's America out there.

..to how loggers
have changed our forests...

Aye, you're knackered
after every day, like,

but it is good.
It's really rewarding.

..and revolutions in farming.

In the last couple of generations,

there's been a huge change
in how we farm from my grandfather,

who would've had
a horse-drawn plough.

Scotland's land reflects
who we are and who we've been.

If we want to restore
and protect it today

we have to understand
what we've done to it,

the good and the bad, going all
the way back to the very beginning.

Did you climb a lot of trees
as a child?

Climbed a lot of trees...

..but never climbed these beautiful
Scots pines.

My only chance of reaching the top
of our Scots pine

is with the help of tree expert
Tim Chamberlain.

This tree is a real treasure.

It's part of the ancient
Caledonian Forest.

So you can see, there's lots of
surface lichen and things

and there are some dead branches.

Just be as careful as you can
when you...

I will. I will be.
It's a special tree.

I'll be gentle with it. Yeah.

And just enjoy. I will.

I've never climbed a tree
this way before.

It's hard work and nerve-racking...

..but definitely worth it,

because I'm actually climbing
back through time

to discover what Scotland
looked like thousands of years ago.

Wow! Look at this.

HE CHUCKLES

This is the Glen Affric Forest,
just north of the Great Glen.

OK, I'm not in a plane or
a helicopter, but at 20 metres up,

I think you can still say
this is the view from above.

You can see both ways down the glen,
across the loch,

up to those beautiful
snow-capped mountains.

It's truly breathtaking.

Before there were aircraft...

..this is how you got
the high viewpoint. Climbing a tree

or climbing a mountain.

There was no other way.

But take to the skies and you can
see just how big this forest is -

the largest, least disturbed ancient
forest in the whole of Britain.

It covers 24 square miles.

Go even higher and all the forests
of Scotland, old and new,

are spread out below you, covering
nearly a fifth of the country.

Large as the Glen Affric Forest is,

it's still just a shadow of
its former self.

5,000 years ago, the original
Caledonian Forest reached its peak,

stretching across more than three
quarters of Scotland's landmass,

in some places reaching quite
literally from coast-to-coast.

Nice. Back down to Earth.

There we are.
That was absolutely fantastic.

As today, the ancient forest was
full of Scots pine, oak and birch.

Though some of the animals have
disappeared, the bears and wolves,

this forest is what most of Scotland
once looked like.

And now people are trying to
resurrect its former splendour.

In this area, you can see
new young pines sprouting up

and because it's natural
regeneration from the parent trees,

they're scattered
all across the hillside.

But just close by,
there are almost no young trees.

The clue as to why
is visible from the air.

This six foot high fence
runs for miles.

It prevents red deer from entering
and then eating the young trees.

Beyond the fence,
I could see what they get up to

given half a chance.

Remarkably, this willow tree
is probably 30 years old

but it's barely half a metre tall.

It's a victim of grazing red deer
that nibble the tips.

And there are more red deer now
in Scotland than ever before.

Perhaps over 400,000.

Go back 60 years and you can see
what the deer have done.

This photograph from 1954 shows
some hillsides bare of trees.

But look at the exact same view
today

and trees are gradually
making a comeback.

Eventually, a much larger area
of Scotland

will be returned to its natural
state from 5,000 years ago.

The long-term goal is to have around
a quarter forested by 2050.

But why did these huge forests
disappear in the first place?

The answer lies here in the huge
collection of aerial photographs

held at Historic Environment
Scotland, where I work.

Thousands of images that reveal
how our ancestors lived,

farmed, fought,
and why they chopped down trees.

By the time of the Iron Age,
around 800BC,

the people of Scotland were building
increasingly impressive hill forts.

An astonishing 1,600
can still be found

scattered all across the country.

In aerial photos,
you can't miss them.

Forts in Angus...

..The Borders...

..and Lanarkshire.

But not all my work
is done in archives.

We're just doing final checks
before we set off on a flight

from Inverness. A flight
to search for the hidden traces

left behind by our ancestors,
often only visible from above.

VOICE ON COMMS

Clark Priestley, my pilot,
has over 6,000 flying hours.

We're travelling from Inverness,
eastwards for 40 miles

to a hillfort called
the Tap O' Noth, built around 400BC.

Nothing beats looking down
at ancient sites from the air.

This extraordinary feature
ahead of me

was once thought to be
the mouth of a volcano.

And you can see why.
But it wasn't nature that made this.

It was us.

From above, you can see why
the Tap O' Noth

was the perfect site for a fort.

Whether for
its defensive capabilities

or simply for projecting power.

It looks pretty desolate now.

But long ago,
several hundred people lived here.

You can still see the stone
ramparts, now collapsed,

which kept them safe from enemies.

But from our helicopter, you can
also make out the faint traces

of an outer wall.

And within this wall,
a pattern of small circular shapes,

the footprints of
a hundred or so huts

that the people of Tap O' Noth
called home.

It's seen a few things
in its history.

I'm sure it can take the careful
landing of a helicopter.

We've been given permission
from the landowner

to set down in the flat
central section of the fort.

I want to get up close and personal

with the impressive ramparts
that encircle the summit

because they hold a remarkable clue

to the fate of
many of Scotland's trees.

Dr Gordon Noble, an archaeologist
from Aberdeen University

is an expert on Iron Age hillforts.

It started blowing a hoolie
on the hill,

so we have to tuck ourselves
into the shelter of the ramparts.

So, Gordon, today perhaps
illustrates the drawbacks

of building high up on a hill
in Scotland.

Indeed. I mean, we're inside
Scotland's second highest hillfort,

and you can see really how extreme
the weather can be up here at times,

and really just the huge effort that
went into taking all the resources

up here to build this
spectacular hillfort.

But it's not just a tough place
to pick to live,

the ramparts themselves
tell a story.

One of the most fascinating
features of this site, though,

are these rocks, aren't they?

Basically this is melted rock.

You've got this vitrified melted
mass here around about the rocks.

The fire has gotten so hot
that the rock has actually melted.

The core of the rampart
has actually created a fused mass.

And this stuff is almost, you know,
it's harder than concrete now.

The fire could have been accidental
or deliberate.

Perhaps the people who lived here

set light to the very walls
that surrounded them,

creating a bonfire so hot
it melted rock.

How much wood would they have needed
both to melt this

and actually for
the construction of the fort?

Well, this is what we don't think
enough about really, you know.

When you see a fort like this,
you could just see

all the stonework,
the huge amount of rubble.

But, actually,
the main strength of this wall

would have been through timber.

And hundreds if not thousands of
trees being felled in the Iron Age

to great forts like this.

We want to see just how hot a fire
would have to be to melt stone,

so we've asked local welder
Sergei to help us out.

So can you guys
put your safety goggles on?

Our test stone is the same type

that makes up the ramparts
of the Tap O' Noth.

Got an infrared thermometer
so I'll take a starting temperature.

25 degrees at the moment.

Let's see what it gets up to, OK?

So this is the same process
that happened up on the hillfort.

Yeah. We just accelerate it
a million times.

A million times? They didn't have
that kind of equipment.

No, no, no.

That's incredible.

You see the bubbling up?

818 but a max of 1150.

So that's the kind of temperature
they were getting up there

in order to melt the stone.

So this is just a tiny piece.

Can you imagine this
on a site that size?

The scale of that size.
Hundred metres long, 30 metres wide.

Yeah. And all of the walls. Yeah.

What do you think of it, Sergei?

Beautiful. Look at it.

It's turning the stone
into marshmallow.

I mean, you'd almost think
that rock couldn't do this.

No, it's just amazing. Isn't it?

Sergei, thank you so much for doing
that for us.

That was amazing. I enjoyed it,
it was a great experience as well.

THEY LAUGH

So, to melt the walls of
Tap O' Noth,

massive fires of a thousand degrees
Celsius would have been needed.

Other hillforts all around Scotland
also went up in flames,

perhaps as many as 70.

Just imagine all those trees
which had to be cut down and burned.

And because the walls were
destroyed,

the hillforts were rarely used
again.

But while Tap O' Noth was abandoned,

people have continued to live
in its shadow.

Today, at the bottom of the hill
is the pretty village of Rhynie.

And right next to Rhynie

is a standing stone
from the time of the Picts,

the people who ruled here
500 years after the hillfort.

This is the Craw Stane.

It's an absolutely beautiful piece
of Pictish carving.

At the top there's a leaping fish,
very probably a salmon,

and below that, what's known as a
Pictish beast, some kind of animal,

potentially a kelpie - that famous
mythological Scottish water sprite

leaping into the air.
It's absolutely stunning.

40 years ago, in the same field,
another Pictish stone

was found by farmer Kevin Alston.

I was ploughing
and hit this big stone.

The plough back then didn't have
the spring release mechanism

so when you hit a big stone
you really knew it.

It knocked you off your seat.

And what did you think
when you actually saw the carving?

Well, it was quite a find, yeah.

Unusual to find
an actual figure of a Pict.

It's nice to have found
the stone

and let everyone see him.

Face-to-face with a Pict.

An extraordinary view
of an ancient man and his axe

who once lived off the land
at Rhynie.

Apart from the standing stones,
the field appears empty,

but it turned out to hide
a surprising discovery.

Back in the dry summer of 1982,

an aerial photograph
was taken of the field.

When Gordon looked at
the photo closely,

he saw something remarkable,

a series of strange circular
patterns.

The shape of the marks
alongside the standing stone

led Gordon to suspect...

..it might be some sort of
pick Pictish settlement,

lost for centuries.

So what did you think
when you saw those strange symbols

in the photograph?

Well, it was really, really exciting
to be honest.

You know, it really showed
that the standing stone

wasn't just standing by itself,

it was clearly part of
this complex of monuments.

And these crop marks are amazing.

It's almost like
a magical process, really.

But the only way to see them
is from the sky?

Only way to see them
is from the sky.

Gordon and his team uncovered
a set of buildings

once home to a wealthy and
fashion-conscious Pictish tribe.

They wore bronze jewellery.

This is a cloak pin
in the shape of an axe.

And enjoyed a refined tipple.

Remains of wine jugs from
the Middle East were found here.

The archaeologists now know
what the settlement looked like.

Once again, they used
lots of timber,

building a wall over 15 feet high

with a walkway made of oak
sourced from far away.

An imposing timber hall
was built inside.

This was a power centre
of international importance.

A Pictish palace.

The material that we're uncovering
gives us connections to...

..ultimately to
the Byzantine Empire,

western France and to the Irish Sea
regions as well.

So this place could be
hugely significant

in the story of Scotland itself?
I think so.

And there's so few of these
Pictish settlements known,

to actually find one
and to find these standing stones,

these Pictish stones
actually in context

with this high state settlement
right next to it is really exciting.

That's the power of
the view from above.

You start off following faint clues
only visible from the sky.

And soon you're unravelling
whole new histories.

It's remarkable that
an aerial photograph

has given us a connection to one of
Scotland's most enigmatic peoples

and shown us a glimpse into the way
they lived 1,500 years ago.

The Picts ruled
the northeast of Scotland

because so much of
the best farmland is here.

Without farming, there was
quite simply nothing to eat.

But throughout our history,
people have also lived off the land

in the most unpromising of places.

I'm travelling to
one of the Wonders Of The World.

It's off the island of Mull
on a much smaller island. Staffa.

Staffa can be difficult to reach,

but skipper David Kilpatrick
knows these waters well.

I mean, there's a whole network
of islands around here

but this is one of the smallest,
isn't it?

Yes, there's no safe anchorage
at this island. Or a good landing.

And that's important.

If you go out to Lunga there,
or any of those...

..some of those other islands,

then the anchorages are safe
and secure.

Staffa hasn't got that.

And when people talk about
somewhere being remote, I mean,

what does remote mean to you?

The Outer Hebrides.

JAMES LAUGHS

Staffa, it's on the edge, isn't it?

Next stop's America out there.

Almost all visitors come to
this island for just one thing.

This is Fingal's Cave.

It's 20 metres high, 80 metres long.

Columns and tiers of basalt rock.

You'd be forgiven for thinking
that people made this,

but what this cave goes to show
is that,

despite all the many, many things
we've done to our landscapes,

there's still perhaps
no better architect than nature.

Fingal's Cave has been world-famous
for over 200 years.

In 1847, they even had
a royal visit.

Queen Victoria was rowed inside,

though presumably on a calmer day
than today.

She wrote in her diary,

"When we turned the corner to
go into the renowned Fingal's Cave,

"the effect was splendid.

"Like a great entrance
into a vaulted hall."

We now know that
these extraordinary pillars

are products of Scotland's
volcanic past.

The lava here cooled so slowly,

it solidified into these distinctive
near-perfect hexagonal shapes.

But I've not come to Staffa

just to admire
its great geological Cathedral.

What's perhaps even more remarkable

is that for hundreds,
maybe even thousands of years,

this tiny remote island was farmed.

Up above the cliffs
are the ruins of a 19th century hut,

which gave shelter to
Victorian tourists.

But explore further
and you'll see how even here,

seemingly on the edge of the world,
people lived off the land.

From the air,
a circular hollow is revealed,

once a pen for Highland cattle.

Ancient fields come to life.

The distinctive ridges, the rigs,
made by ploughing or digging,

which pushed the earth into a mound

and furrows in either side for crops
and to drain off water -

evidence of the toil needed
to produce food from the tough soil.

And these field marks can be found
across the entire island.

We've even found out
exactly what they grew.

Grains of barley from the island

were dated back to
an astonishing 1800BC.

Yet, we've no written records
of Staffa until the 18th century.

We know for certain that
two extended families lived here,

perhaps up to 16 people.

Boswell and Johnson met some of them
on their 1773 tour of the Highlands.

They were less surprised with the
fact that they were living here

and more by their indifference to
the beauties of Fingal's Cave.

They wrote, "When the islanders
were reproached with their ignorance

"or insensibility
of the wonders of Staffa,

"they had not much to reply.

"They had indeed
considered it little

"because they'd always seen it."

Staffa is proof of the lengths
Scots have gone to

throughout history to put
every inch of our land to work.

We don't know for sure
what help these islanders get

through the brutal winter nights,

but if they had barley,
we can take a very good guess...

..whisky.

This is the island of Islay, home to
no less than eight distilleries.

I've come here because
it's a chance to glimpse the past,

to see how whisky used to be made
by our great-great-grandparents

back in the days when
it was distilled at home,

with barley, water and peat
all on your doorstep.

I'm on my way to the smallest
distillery on Islay - Kilchoman.

It's also the first new distillery
to open on the island

for over 120 years
and it's not just its modest size

and its youth that sets it apart...

..at this distillery, they're
reviving the old original way

of making whisky,
based around a single farm.

The man running it
is named after the island itself,

he's Islay Heads.

Hi, Islay. Morning, James,
how are you today?

Good. I've caught you hard at it.
Yeah.

We're just evening out
the malt floor here,

so we get an even germination
of the barley.

How do you do it? Well, if you
grab a rake, we'll show you.

You just start at one end,
take all the peaks out the barley.

We're going back to
where distilling came from.

Back to farms where it all started.

The farmers would have extra barley
from their crops

and they would distil it,
maybe to entertain friends

with a bit of craic
in the long winters,

maybe to sell a bit or barter a bit.

We've been going right back
to the barley grown on the farm

and everything processed
on the farm,

at the distillery itself.

So nothing goes
any further than the farm gate.

15 years ago, this was just a simple
farm with cattle and fields.

But in 2005...

..it became a distillery as well.

New buildings were put up
for stills,

the cattle shed
turned into a warehouse.

It's all on a scale more like
the old illicit whisky stills

once hidden away on farms.

In just a single year, 1823,

Scottish law officers shut down
an astonishing 14,000 stills,

many of them on Islay.

Illegal distilling
was a way of life.

So is there an element of
that rebel spirit

with what you're trying to do here?

I wouldn't say maybe "rebel",

but we're trying to do things
traditionally.

We try to take our time with
everything.

And nothing's machine led,
it's all led by the spirit.

But by taking this
traditional approach,

can you only ever get so big?

Yes. We could probably
only ever get so big.

But I don't think
that's a bad thing.

This is where the magic happens.

This is where the spirit's
distilled. At 2,000 litres,

it's just larger than the smallest
legally allowed still.

The size limit was and is about

stamping out
illicit home whisky making.

The thinking was that larger stills
meant legitimate business,

whereas small ones meant
someone was cheating the system...

..and the taxman.

As with the old distilleries,

the ingredients to make the whisky
are all close at hand.

The farm has several
fields of barley.

But you need more than
just the barley crop.

The water for the whisky
comes from a burn

a few hundred metres up the hill,
channelled into the distillery...

..and close by
is the final ingredient.

This is something that's
thousands of years in the making.

A mass of wet, decayed vegetation.
It becomes this - peat.

And it doesn't look like much
just now,

but when you burn it and you smell
it, then it smells of Scotland.

Peat gives Islay whiskies
their distinctive smoky taste.

Vast peat bogs
cover much of the island.

The peat is cut out of the ground

to fuel the fires
that smoke the barley...

..part of the process
known as malting.

Real Scotch needs at least three
years maturing in a barrel.

But the more patient you are,
the better.

Islay was keen to introduce me
to a ten-year-old whisky.

So this is where it ends up?

This is where it ends up,
in the warehouse.

This used to be a barn for cattle?

So there used to be
about 80 to 100 cows in here.

And we've maybe put it to a better
use than it was previously.

And where are they now? They're
out on the hill...in the rain.

They can't be happy.

Before it's bottled,
the best whisky to taste

is straight from the cask.
You want a dram? Yes, please.

Slainte. Slainte.

Oh. Warm the cockles of your heart.

It really does.
On a cold day like this.

It's absolutely perfect.

Just stay in here
for the rest of the day, will we?

It's not just alcohol
that's distilled to make this,

it's Islay itself.

The soil, the earth, the Atlantic
air, the barley, the water.

When you drink this, you're
drinking in a whole landscape.

Jamie, do you fancy some?

Thanks.

Oh, yes.

Thanks very much. I'll have that.

JAMES LAUGHS

By the early 1700s,

the traditional Highland way of life
had been going on for centuries.

People continued
to make a living off the land...

..but rebellion was in the air.

The government acted.

For British soldiers to travel
rapidly through the mountains

to subdue the Highlanders,
new roads were needed.

Today, a mountain bike is perfect

for exploring the remarkable remains
of one of those roads.

Here, it stretches for 12 miles,

rises to a staggering two and a half
thousand feet above sea level

and it remains pretty much
just as it was

when it was first built,
nearly 300 years ago.

This route takes you
north-westwards from Laggan.

At Corrieyairack it was and still is
the highest road in Scotland.

And then it descends into
Fort Augustus

at the southern tip of Loch Ness.

In total,
250 miles of roads were built,

crisscrossing the Highlands.

George Wade was the general
in charge.

His new roads would let troops march
much more rapidly between bases.

Fort Augustus was at the heart of
this military network.

Wade's road is challenging enough
on a bike, but nothing compared

to the hardships of constructing it
back in 1731.

British government soldiers, known
as redcoats, did the hard graft.

The road required not just
one construction party, but six.

Over 500 redcoats.

They were always accompanied
by a drummer,

presumably to keep morale up
when either the migdges

or the rain got too much.

The idea was to build the roads
to a standardised width of 16 feet.

But when the going got tough,
as it almost inevitably did,

they reduced that to ten feet.

Let's see how they did.

And there we are, ten feet.

Absolutely bang-on.

Most of the new road was routed
along the floor of the glens.

But then they faced the mountains
at Corrieyairack,

a high pass topping out at 2,500ft
is the only way through.

The chief surveyor Edmund Burt
knew that to get a road up

such a steep slope, you'd need
some seriously sharp bends.

Edmund Burke wrote about
how challenging

this section of the road was

and how impressive their efforts
had been to conquer it.

He remarked rather wistfully that

the only way to truly appreciate
the scale of the achievement

was to see it from the sky.

"Nothing could give you
a general view of it", he wrote,

"unless one could be placed high
above the mountain in the air."

Impossible back then.

But today, Edmund,
we've brought our drones,

so albeit three centuries on,
your wish is granted.

A remarkable series of hairpin
bends, 11 in total,

take you to the summit of
Corrieyairack Pass,

the highest point along the route.

A punishing ascent,
whatever your mode of travel.

By the end of October 1731,

the soldiers had finally completed
the road into Fort Augustus...

..and celebrated with roast oxen
and a barrel of ale.

There's a rich irony to
the story of this road.

It was originally built
to help the redcoats

control the unruly Highland clans,

but actually it was Bonnie Prince
Charlie's Jacobites

who were the first army
to use the road,

racing down it 15 years later,
in 1745, on their way to war.

Rather than a barrier to sedition,

this was rebellion's route one,

a high speed, high quality
revolutionary road.

Even today, this route remains
in use.

But now instead of soldiers
marching up and down,

it's electricity pylons.

Eight years ago, work began on
the Beauly-Denny transmission line

to link hydroelectric stations
and wind farms

in the north of Scotland
to the south.

Once the pylons were up,

helicopters attached the electricity
cables between them.

The modern day Edmund Burt
in charge of this section

is Alistair Brand.

General Wade and his engineers,
they were fairly clever

and they chose the most easy
and practical ways

of linking up
their road infrastructure.

And this section of the Beauly-Denny
line runs to Fort Augustus.

And for this section we follow
the route of General Wade's road.

Behind us is the Corrieyairack Pass.

It's 1,750 metres above sea level

and it's the highest transmission
line in the British Isles.

So we've basically
followed his route.

Can you imagine
what it must have been like

for those soldiers
building the road?

Well, we have a lot of
modern equipment

and we're able to return to
the warmth and comfort

of hotels and accommodation.

These guys were really pretty tough.

Would you have fancied that job?
I wouldn't have fancied that job.

JAMES LAUGHS

At about the same time as
Wade's roads

were penetrating the Highlands,

so new ideas of how to live
off the land were emerging...

..ideas which would come to
change our country forever.

Each year, tourists flock to
the Scottish islands.

They come for the beauty,
the peace and quiet.

And compared to most of Europe,
few people live here.

But it hasn't always been like this.

Take Mull.

Today, only 3,000 people live on
this relatively large island.

But you only have to
look at the land from above

to see just how different
things were two centuries ago.

Abandoned villages
dot the landscape...

In the 1840s, the population
of Mull was three times greater

than it is now. Over 10,000 people.

This land was packed.

Then, very suddenly, people started
disappearing from here,

and villages all across Scotland.

It was one of the most drastic
social changes in our history.

The often traumatic birth
of Scotland into the modern world.

The Clearances.

I've come to the remains of
the village of Shiaba

on the Ross Of Mull
to find out more.

This place once teemed with
140 people.

I'm meeting world-renowned
historian Professor Sir Tom Devine,

who's fascinated by
the story of this village.

Nobody can experience this without
being deeply moved and impressed.

You know, the complete absence
of people.

Only the remains of
parts of their houses.

It is an extraordinary place

and I don't think
there's anywhere like it...

..as a memorial to clearance
anywhere in any other part

of the Western
Highlands and Islands.

The clearance of Shiaba
was especially shocking

because it had been such
a successful and thriving township.

From the air, you can grasp
its original extent.

More than 20 houses,
a school building...

..a mill for grinding corn.

Down by the sea,
two fishermen's cottages...

..and a tiny chapel for the Sabbath.

Shiaba is one of the most fertile
parts of Mull

and ridges from ploughing and old
field boundaries still stand out.

By this time in the morning,
it would have been a bustling place.

The kids would be
perhaps preparing to go to school

because there was a schoolhouse.

The rest of the community,
they're hard at work.

They could be doing anything from
ploughing

to leading cattle up to
the high country for grazing areas.

They may have been digging
vegetables and potatoes.

The whole ethos of these places
was hard toil.

There would probably be singing
as people worked,

and then, of course,
the smell of the cooking pots

as lunch started to approach.

Very closely related, many of them.

We find names constantly
recurring among the population

like MacGillivray, MacKinnon.

So it would be a strong,
coherent and stable community.

The people of Shiaba
were all tenants.

The land was owned by
the Duke of Argyll

who lived at Inveraray Castle
on the mainland.

The Duke was one of a small handful
of aristocracy

owning huge tracts of Scotland.

Although the Duke of Argyll

was still in formal control
of the estates,

he had a thrusting young son whose
name was The Marquis Of Lorne,

who eventually became the Duke.

And it's quite clear
from his correspondence

that he was determined to increase
the rental of the entire estate.

The way to do that in that period
was to put land down to sheep.

His reasoning was simple.

Sheep were more profitable
than people.

It was all about
ruthless efficiency.

Squeezing the best return from the
landscape, whatever the human cost.

The landowners called it
improvement.

The Marquis Of Lorne served
an eviction notice to the villagers.

To begin with, they thought
it was a ruse to raise their rent,

but they soon realised
this was no bluff.

In desperation, the villagers
of Shiaba sent the Duke a petition.

The oldest resident, Neil MacDonald,
lived here.

On the 1st of June 1847 he wrote,

"I'm now verging on
100 years of age.

"It would be a great hardship
and quite unprecedented

"to remove a man of my age
who, as is natural to suppose,

"is drawing close to the house
appointed for all living."

His pleas and those of
the other villagers were ignored.

In the summer of 1847,
the villagers were evicted.

So I think the people eventually
just accepted the horrible reality,

that this was the end of
their way of life.

Some headed for the growing city
of Glasgow.

Most travelled to Canada.

A number died on the voyage,

though a few made a success
of the new country.

A settler in Ontario wrote home.

"I've seen John MacGillivray
who left Shiaba

"going to Owen Sound
where he bought 200 acres of land,

"all paid down cash."

For some, at least, it was actually
the hope of owning their own land

without any factors,
without any managers,

without sheep farmers, and
certainly without any landowners.

So, for some of these people
it was ironically, not at the time,

but for some of them eventually,
it was a good deal.

Not quite everyone left Shiaba

The McKinley family were allowed
to stay in this cottage.

The father became the shepherd,

looking after the thousands of sheep
that had taken over the land.

It must have been
a lonely existence.

A community of people replaced by
a community of livestock.

The McKinley family
finally left in 1937,

after the roof of their home
blew off in a storm.

A map from the time
confirms it wasn't just Shiaba

which became a ghost village.

Close by, the townships
of Serphen...

..Kilvickeon and Scour
were cleared, and many others...

..a story repeated
in much of Scotland

as an astonishing quarter of
a million people moved on.

Today, Shiaba stands for all
those places that have long gone.

It's that silence which is
melancholic and sad.

So it is a place of sadness,

but it's also... It's a monument
to an old way of life

which has disappeared.

An ancient way of life that, you
know, as Scots we should remember

because that's where our forefathers
and foremothers came from,

and which existed for centuries.

This isn't a story about ruins.

It's a story about people.

It's a story about people's enduring
connection to the landscape.

This was something that
had to happen for Scotland.

Scotland had to change,
it had to become a modern country

with a modern economy.

But how we changed, that's something
we could have done differently.

There was an inhumanity
about how we treated people,

an inhumanity that
this site memorialises forever.

Clearances of the Lowlands
often took place

before those in the north
of Scotland.

You can see just how they changed
the land and maps from the time.

Here's East Lothian in 1755.

Farms of almost completely
open fields.

No boundaries or borders.

But by 1895, every field
is enclosed with hedges or walls.

Yet one of the key revolutions
in farming

happened much more recently,
within the last generation.

I've come to the town of Dirleton
in East Lothian

to meet a local farmer who can tell
me all about the changes

that have happened to his own farm.

Changes that have had
a powerful impact on the landscape

all across Scotland.

Bob Simpson has worked Castlemains
Farm since he was a young lad.

The farm covers over 500 acres,
growing everything from barley

and potatoes, to beans and sprouts.

Each autumn, Bob ploughs his fields
for next year's harvest.

Hi there, Bob. Come in
to the warmth. I could do.

Good to see you.

So, Bob, how long's this farm
been in your family?

Our family's been here since 1892.

So we've been over 100 years
on this farm.

I'm the fourth generation
of the family to farm here.

How have you seen it change
over the years?

In my lifetime,
the fields have got bigger.

In the old days, we had generally
fields of 15 to 20 acres.

Now we're farming fields that are
80 acres, 90 acres.

We've got one block that's behind us
that's 108 acres.

These changes are most obvious
through aerial photography.

This image from 1946 shows Dirleton

surrounded by the many small fields
of Castlemains.

40 years later,
and the view is transformed.

Many small fields have been merged
into fewer much larger fields.

These huge fields were the result of
a single dramatic change,

the end of the horse and plough.

And it happened surprisingly
recently.

Probably the biggest change was the
mechanisation in the early '60s,

when the days of the horse ploughing
finished in the '50s

and the advent of the tractors
came in the '60s.

So machinery has got
significantly bigger

in the '70s, '80s, and up to today.

We've got a picture here of my
first combine and this is from 1958.

It's a Massey Harris 735.

These old tractors and combines,

they're far more manoeuvrable
in small fields.

But as the machinery got bigger,

you had to increase
the size of the fields.

Where our ancestors grew kale,

these fields nearby Castlemains
Farm now grow it's close relative...

..Brussels sprouts.

Once we only harvested
when the light allowed.

These days, machines work
around the clock.

It's 8am, and the harvester,
supervised by Tracy McCulloch,

is hard at it.

So these are our Christmas sprouts.

We sell about a quarter
of our Brussels sprouts

at this time of year,
so it's full steam ahead.

It used to be that all the sprouts
were harvested by hand,

but you can see with
the size of the field here,

doing that by hand now
would be a really hard job.

And it is hard work doing
it with the machines as well,

but at least we can get through it
a lot quicker.

In the last couple of generations,

there's been a huge change
in how we farm

from my grandfather who would have
had a horse-drawn plough,

to now, where we have
huge machines

to do a lot of the work for us
and help us.

We're really passionate
about what we do.

We love growing good quality
vegetables

and seeing them on the shelves

and it's something to be
really proud of.

Ways of life have come and gone.

People have flocked to
the towns and cities

but the dominant story
of our landscape

has remained the story of
that great revolution

in human behaviour
from thousands of years ago -

farming.

Over the centuries, as farmland
took over, so our forests shrank.

Huge numbers of trees
were cut down to make way for fields

and to provide valuable timber.

It couldn't last forever.

By the early part of the 1900s,

forestry in Scotland
was at an all-time low.

Just 5% of the landmass was covered.

Then came the establishment of
the Forestry Commission.

Huge plantations sprang up
all across the country.

Today, 19% of our landscape is
forested like these woods below me.

They'd planted fast-growing
foreign trees

such as Sitka spruce from Canada.

At 50 years old, these trees
are ready for harvesting.

In a way, it's all just
a type of really slow farming,

with trees as the crops.

That's why I've travelled
to the mountains of Strathcarron

and the Forest Of Achnashellach.

Up to now, this plantation
would have remained untouched,

as the steep slopes make it
so hard to get the trees out.

But not any more.

The loggers are highly skilled
and need steady nerves.

I caught up with some of them
over lunch.

You've got to work in
very inaccessible areas.

Do you ever find that struggle just
getting to where you've got to work?

It is. it is.

It's pretty muddy ground,
you know, but it's not too bad.

I mean, it must be
really hard work.

Aye, you're knackered
after every day, like, but...

Nah, it is good.
It's really rewarding.

Everybody can build muscle,
that's no problem.

But the hardest part
is the rain and weather.

Once the trees are down,
the loggers face a bit of a problem.

A deep gorge and river lie
at the bottom of the steep slope.

And the trees have to be shifted
to the other side.

Calum Duffy is the man to solve it.

So is logging something
you've always done?

Yes, I've been brought up with that.

My father and brother
are both loggers as well.

My father won the British chainsaw
championship two years in a row.

So I come from good stock.

So you've got a lot to live up to?

I have, aye. Constantly, yeah.

I mean, has that surprised you,
when you have to come

and try and cut on slopes
as steep as that?

The trees grow very well
on steep slopes.

The ground is very well drained,
just absolute grade A timber.

It's great timber,
but just hard to get to?

Yes, exactly. But that's
just what we do, you know,

and we really enjoy it,
the challenge.

Calum has risen to that challenge.

His team attaches heavy-duty cables
to the fallen trees.

A powerful pulley
lifts up the whole tree.

Sometimes three at a time,
up to four tonnes in weight

and carries them across
the deep gorge.

On the other side, a machine
cuts them into manageable logs...

..right next to
the all-important road

for the timber to be driven off.

Every day Calum's team cuts down
70 tonnes of wood

and a fresh payload
zips across every six minutes.

Despite all this logging
seen here at Achnashellach,

the area of forested land
across Scotland continues to rise.

But the design of
some new forests is changing.

So we're removing
the commercial forestry

which is the Sitka spruce,
larch etc,

because there's ancient Caledonian
pines all through this valley here.

So we are removing
the commercial forestry

and we're hoping that
this will recede

and this whole area
will go back to natural forest.

This is what many of the new
plantations will look like.

More light, more space,
a wider variety of tree species

to allow plants and animals
to thrive in the undergrowth.

It's a carefully managed recreation
of the original native forests.

Soon, the dense regimented blocks
of Sitka spruce

that dot our countryside
will become rarer,

changing the picture once more,
as we view the land from above.

What a site like this shows

is that it takes no time
to bring a forest down

but a long time to bring it back.

You don't plant trees for you.

You plant them for your children,
or your children's children.

We may never see the return of
the original native forests,

but at least today we can see
their seeds being sown.

Ways of life can endure
for hundreds of years

and then disappear almost overnight,

scarring the earth
and scattering people.

From the furrows of early farms,

to modern machines which harvest
on an industrial scale,

but however we live off the land,
we need to look after it.

There's no better than
the view from above

to understand how we've marked and
changed these landscapes over time.

The challenge today
is to think carefully

about how we're going to mark
the landscape into the future.

What we're going to leave
for the generations to come.

Next time in
Scotland From The Sky...

..we'll be exploring
the history of our industry.

How the drive to use
our natural resources

took businesses
to the remotest places.

How heavy industry lives
on in our landscapes

and in our memories.

I enjoyed it.
It was a filthy, dirty hole.

And I'll follow
in the footsteps of my father

to Shetland and the oil boom.

And there we are.
Me on my dad's shoulder.