Calderwood Country Park, Mid Calder, West Lothian, Scotland

The Birch Trail, Calderwood Country Park

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A tree on the Birch Trail  in Calderwood Country Park, West Lothian.

Calderwood is the largest and the most notable area of ancient woodland in West Lothian, and one of its best kept secrets. Undeveloped and unspoilt, it sits on a plateau bounded by the steep, wooded valleys of the Linhouse and Murieston Waters. Trees such as oak, hazel, ash, rowan, wild cherry, hawthorn, beech and birch cover much of the plateau, and the rich mixture of woodland, wetland and grassland provides homes for roe deer, fox, heron, woodpecker, bats and badgers.

There has been woodland in Calderwood for many hundreds of years. In the 1500's, trees were coppiced for charcoal, and oak was harvested for shipbuilding. In the 1700s, drovers on their way to and from the Falkirk Tryst rested their cattle here before or after taking them up and over the Cauldstane Slap in the Pentlands. In the 1900s, the area was mined for shale oil, creating an extensive series of tunnels deep below the earth. Throughout this time, the site belonged to the powerful Sandilands family who owned the lands of Calder, and who, as the Lords Torphichen, still live in Calder House in Mid Calder to this day. West Lothian Council took over management in the late 1960s. It was designated a "Site of Special Scientific Interest" (SSSI) by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) in 1988.