From Big Smoke to wee campfires
Couple who left London to embrace the wilds share the joy of learning outdoors
Children have been enjoying the great outdoors at a Stirlingshire estate.
Landowners Marie and David Trevithick bought the Carbeth Guthrie Estate near Blanefield last year and have been offering Forest Schools sessions there since October.
The classes give children the opportunity to light campfires, build dens, use tools and climb trees as well as playing games.
The Trevithicks bought the 52acre Carbeth Guthrie Estate last January and moved to Stirlingshire from London.
David had worked as an energy consultant and Marie had been a florist before bringing up their children in the city.
However, Mrs Trevithick, originally from Aberdeen, said she had been tired of living in the grime of London and wanted to return to Scotland.
Of the Forest Schools progamme, she said: “It’s wonderful seeing the children develop their skills and confidence.
“Forest Schools are being developed across Scotland to address a growing awareness that younger generations have lost many of the freedoms that their grandparents would have taken for granted like climbing trees, taking risks and learning through handson experience.
“Our own children attended Forest Schools on the outskirts of London and enjoyed it immensely. We wanted to do the same thing here.”
The classes, which run on Saturday mornings and afternoons on 10 acres of woodland within the estate, are run by qualified Forest Schools leader Craig Thomson.
Forty-one-year-old Mrs Trevithick pointed out: “The estate is not involved in agriculture. We are looking at being more of a social enterprise.
“Any money made from holding the Forest Schools would go back into the maintenance of the woodland and the estate itself.”
Land on the neighbouring 90acre Carbeth Estate had been bought by its hutters in a £1.75m community buy-out in 2013.
The Carbeth Guthrie Estate gets its name from West Indies merchant John Guthrie who built the estate’s mansion – Carbeth Guthrie House, a B-listed building – in the early 1800s.
On his death in 1834 the merchant left the estate to his cousin William Smith, a provost of Glasgow, who renamed the mansion Carbeth Guthrie in gratitude for the inheritance.