Skulferatu #90 - Training Trenches, Dreghorn Wood, Edinburgh

 

On a day of damp and drizzle, with occasional bursts of warm sunshine that promised much but gave little, I went on a trip to Dreghorn.  This is a part of Edinburgh I’ve never really ventured to before.  I think I’ve passed through it on the bus a few times, but it is not a place I’ve ever stopped off in.  However, I’d been told there was a rather interesting relic from the First World War in the woods here, so I thought I’d go and take a look.

 

Dreghorn Woods are next to the army barracks, so there is a lot of fencing and barbed wire along the paths taking you round. The woods are quite tranquil though, a haven from the busy roads nearby.  Being Autumn, the paths were pretty much mud and puddles with a covering of gold and red from the fallen leaves. But, hey, that’s nothing for an intrepid explorer like me!

 

Braid Burn running through Dreghorn Woods

 

Obligatory photo of fallen leaves

 

Swirling branches

 

Barbed wire and fences – Dreghorn Barracks

 

I took the long walk round to my destination, which lay on a slope by the river and just down from the barracks.  Handily signposted, otherwise you’d just think it was some mud and old earthworks, were what I’d come looking for.  These holes in the ground were actually training trenches from World War One, to get the poor sods drafted into the army ready for fighting out on the front.  

 

I followed a well-worn path that skirted around them.  A path of wet, slippery mud and leaf goo.  It gave some impression of what the soldiers training here would have had to go through.  Though, unlike them, I wasn’t going to crawl through the trenches and the puddles of water and sludge.

 

Training trench at Dreghorn Woods

 

Training trench at Dreghorn Woods

 

A zig zag of trenches in the wood

 

Trenches in the woods

 

Dreghorn Woods used to form part of the Dreghorn Estate, which stretched up into the nearby Pentland Hills.  In 1905 the estate was purchased by the War Department, now the Ministry of Defence, for training, and as a barracks.  During World War One, recruits constructed a major trench system through the woods and were trained in the tactics and ways of trench warfare.  Though, having read both Erich Maria Remarque’s ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ and Ernst Jünger's ‘Storm of Steel’ I do wonder how well it would have really prepared them for the slaughter they were about to face. 

 

Remains of a trench in the woods

 

Remains of a trench in the woods

 

A trench in the woods

 

After World War Two, the military stopped using the woods for training and the trenches became overgrown and many were eroded away.  They were largely forgotten about until a local historian, Lynne Gladstone-Millar, led a campaign to preserve them.  Her father, who fought in the First World War, had trained at Dreghorn Woods, and had told her about his experiences there and that the mud in the woods, the ‘Dreghorn Sludge’, had been good training for fighting at the Somme.  In 2013 an archaeological survey was carried out on the remnants of the trench system, and it was cleared of trees and vegetation to help preserve it.

 

After taking a walk around, I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me, at the side of one of the shallower trenches, by the remains of some corrugated iron that would once have been used to strengthen the sides of the trench.

 

Skulferatu #90

 

Skulferatu #90 in a trench

 

Skulferatu #90 in a trench

 

Skulferatu #90 in a trench

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #90 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.902423

Longitude -3.24401

 

what3words: book.trains.lock

 

I used the following sources for information on the Training Trenches –

 

Information Board at Site

 

Historic Environment Scotland

Dreghorn Woods Training Trenches

 

BBC – World War One at Home

BBC - World War One At Home, Edinburgh, Scotland - The Dreghorn Training Trenches