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Landward episode 4 2025
Transcript
00:00From sandy beaches to soaring sea cliffs, this time we're on the coast.
00:09Welcome to Lambert.
00:30A very warm welcome from stunning Dunnet Bay in Caithness, just one small part of the 18,000 kilometres of coastline that's around our country.
00:44Shaped over time by waves and weather, our shores cover a varied range of scenery that have influenced the way we live.
00:53So, in this programme Around the Edge of Scotland, here's what's coming up.
00:57At your service, the coastal community doing things for themselves.
01:04Do you need a helper to help you?
01:05You're very welcome. We're always looking for more volunteers.
01:08The remarkable story of the Caithness caves that became home.
01:13There was an incredible amount of births at this cave.
01:17Look at these guys!
01:19And these seals needed a hospital, so this woman built one.
01:27But first, of those 18,000 kilometres of coastline, almost 4,000 of them have the potential to be hit by coastal erosion.
01:42And that means that in only a few years, parts of our coast could look very different.
01:49Rosie's in Fife, finding out how the ever-popular West Sands Beach is holding up.
01:54I fell in love with this place when I was a student here in St Andrews.
02:01It's my happy place.
02:02But while you and I are accustomed to seeing this incredible beach like this,
02:06it's undergoing a huge amount of change.
02:11It's beautiful today.
02:13But the weather doesn't always play ball.
02:16Professor Sue Dawson lives in St Andrews, but she's also a coastal erosion expert at the University of Dundee.
02:28She can explain how the weather is damaging the beach.
02:32A big storm in the autumn of 2023, Storm Barbette, had a huge impact here
02:38and ripped out a huge swathes of the coastline, primarily at the top end of the beach.
02:44It's interesting because I thought that it was down to sea levels rising that erosion was happening.
02:49Sea level does have a part to play.
02:52And as sea levels are rising with climate change, they will impact a coast like this.
02:57As you can see, the beach is really relatively flat.
03:00So a small change in sea level will have a big impact.
03:03But the biggest changes have been when big storms have come through.
03:08And over where the high tide meets the dunes,
03:12the storms are revealing what's left of a former council waste disposal site.
03:17It's not the image you want of St Andrews Beach for sure at West Sands.
03:21But what we can see behind us is the effects of coastal erosion.
03:26It's a landfill site that you couldn't see 20 years or so ago.
03:30But as storms and high waves and wave energy has impacted the base of these dunes,
03:36they've eroded that material out and it's a whole mess.
03:42Our coast is always in a state of change.
03:45But since the 1970s, the speed that erosion has taken place at sites like this has doubled.
03:52This coastal edge is dynamic.
03:56That's the nature of the coast.
03:57And we need to work with that with a range of different solutions to protect the infrastructure behind it.
04:03And here in St Andrews is the world famous golf course.
04:07And in fact, the beach itself is world famous.
04:10So we want to try and protect that in some way if we can.
04:15And leading the fight back is Ranald Strachan.
04:19She's the cruel master and we're never going to win entirely.
04:22But the wonderful thing is that she gives us a little bit of respite every now and again.
04:27The ranger with the St Andrews Lynx Trust has been battling to save the dunes for the last 20 years.
04:34Right, well this is sand dune restoration at the coalface really.
04:38This sand has been imported and we've shaped it to look and act like a sand dune.
04:43Ranald's brought in more than 70,000 tonnes of the stuff to defend the dunes.
04:49But sand isn't enough on its own.
04:52So you've got lime grass which has these sort of flag, sort of lovely kind of bluey green open leaves.
04:59And then you have marum.
05:00How this works is these will stabilise the dune, grow the dune to such a stature that the sea can't actually crawl up the beach and get to these grasses.
05:09So lime is more of a pioneering grass that will go out onto the beach and that tends to build width in the sand dunes.
05:16And then in comes the marum behind it and that loves to be buried by sand.
05:20So the more sand that accumulates on the top of marum, the taller it will grow.
05:25So that builds height.
05:27So between the two of them, you're getting width from the lime and you're getting height from the marum.
05:33So pop them in there else.
05:35In like that.
05:35And then that's it.
05:37I think I can do that.
05:39Okay.
05:40Just heel that in.
05:42Like that.
05:43That's fantastic.
05:45Brilliant.
05:45It's my first piece of marum grass in the place I love.
05:48It doesn't get much better than that.
05:49Defending the dunes here at St Andrews is an ongoing struggle and one that beaches around the country are facing.
05:58Weather and tide are formidable opponents, but Ranald is confident they can be held up at least for a time.
06:06Well, I'm hopeful that our measures to tackle erosion are going to be successful to the point that at least we won't lose our major recreational beaches.
06:17And, you know, we won't have any impact on our wonderful golf courses.
06:22But also we won't lose the biodiversity and the habitats that are linked to the sand dune system.
06:28It's just a bonny place.
06:31We want to leave it for our future generations.
06:33Like other Scottish coastal communities, the people here in Caithness are strongly connected to the sea.
06:48Within local folklore are stories of selkies or seal people.
06:54And I guess that's because seals have always been a familiar sight around these shores.
07:00But now and again, for many different reasons, they need a bit of help.
07:06And that's why Claire Boardman came to Broch on the north coast.
07:11The former vet nurse worked with horses for 20 years.
07:15But now she's looking out for seals.
07:19Hi Claire, what are you seeing?
07:20Hi there. I'm just looking at the seals out in the bay, just seeing what we have swimming around at the moment.
07:26And there's one bobbing its head up just there, isn't there?
07:28There is, yes. It looks like a male grey seal that's just come to say hello.
07:32How did you get involved with seals in the first place here?
07:34When we moved up here, myself and Phil, my husband, joined the British Divers Marine Life Rescue team up here.
07:42So we were rescuing seals, but they were being relayed down to Edinburgh.
07:46Which is a long, you know, that's the closest hospital to us and it's a long, long way away.
07:51Yeah.
07:52And a lot of them weren't making it, you know, sick and injured pups.
07:55It's a long trip to make.
07:57So we just decided to build our own hospital.
08:00So what kind of things happen to the seals before you get the call, say?
08:04It can be the bad weather.
08:06If we have really bad storms up here, we get a lot of seals washed up that'll be injured.
08:11We do get entanglements in fishing gear.
08:14A lot, unfortunately, to do with human interference.
08:19So people getting too close to seals.
08:21Should we take a look at the hospital?
08:22Of course we can.
08:23Let's go up here.
08:24Go.
08:24Opening in 2022, Clare's Hospital is ideally located just above the bay, treating and rehabilitating grey and common seal pups.
08:37Sick or injured animals are checked by a local vet before they're brought in.
08:42And while they're here, feeding is a non-stop job.
08:46This is where we have the herring, which is ready to be fed to the seals out in the swimming pool.
08:54How many fish does each seal eat per day?
08:57These seals at the moment are getting about 15 fish each per meal, and they're getting fed three times a day.
09:0545 fish.
09:07That's a huge amount.
09:08Shall I carry?
09:09Yes, please, if you don't mind.
09:10We're going to feed them in the pool now.
09:11OK.
09:12The hospital is a charity that relies on volunteer help and public donations.
09:19It's been purpose-built by Clare's husband, Phil.
09:23Look at these guys!
09:27The hospital can accommodate up to 19 seals.
09:31The markers on their heads let Clare identify them.
09:34This one is banana.
09:35She's one of the two girls.
09:37There's another little girl in here called Snowflake.
09:39And then there's three boys.
09:42And what stage are these guys at then?
09:45These are kind of at the end stage now.
09:49They've come in as pups.
09:51They may have come in at 8, 9, 10 kilos, and they're now around about 35 kilos.
09:57They just look really, really fantastic.
10:00Very happy.
10:01And soon to be leaving you.
10:03Yep.
10:03These guys in the next couple of weeks will be going back out to the sea.
10:08It must be pretty satisfying for you to see them at this stage.
10:11And, of course, then when you release them as well, that must be a wonderful feeling.
10:15I mean, it's a lot of hard work and it's a lot of time, but it's really rewarding.
10:20You know, I used to get upset when they first went out, but now my thought is, it's my job done.
10:28Yeah.
10:28And ten days after my visit, Claire released three of the seals, butternut, peanut and papaya, back into the sea.
10:42Time for a breather before Claire has to get ready for the arrival of more seals during common seal puffing season at the end of May.
10:55And while the seal population might be on the increase here at Brough, around Scotland, the human population is set to decline by the middle of this century.
11:05It's expected that rural areas, in particular the west coast, will be hit hardest by this trend.
11:12Shabazz is trying to get to one coastal community, doing its best to make sure it survives.
11:26This is Applecross, one of the most stunning and remote parts of Scotland.
11:35This coastal peninsula has housed a small community for over a thousand years.
11:42But in order for me to get there, I think I'm going to need a lift.
11:50At least the view's not too bad.
11:53Public transport is limited to two buses a week.
11:56That is, until the community took things into their own hands.
12:00Hi, you must be Megan.
12:01I am, you must be Shabazz.
12:03Can I get a lift over to Applecross?
12:04Of course, jump in.
12:05This bus is community owned and operated, and its driver today is Megan McInnes.
12:12She's part of the Applecross Community Company, a trust set up by the locals to try and solve some of the problems of living in such a remote area, where public services can be difficult to access.
12:25But to get to the village and see what else the community are doing, we've got to navigate one of the highest roads in Britain.
12:40You can see the shearer drop down the side, but at the same time, it's so beautiful.
12:43Wow.
12:44Not for the faint-hearted, though, but you obviously must do this quite a lot.
12:47Know the road like the back of your hand.
12:49Applecross Township is known by the locals as the street, and that's pretty much all it is.
13:02But the trust are doing their best to make the isolated village a viable place to live.
13:08So this is one of two community transport vehicles that we've leased from the Highland Council to provide a community transport service.
13:15One of them is used every day for the school transport services to take the kids to primary school.
13:20They're used for trips to go swimming, go to Eden Court, sporting cultural events.
13:24So it's a vital lifeline for the community then, really?
13:27It absolutely is, yeah. It's really helping to reduce social isolation and also reduce car use.
13:32And I think, is this one of your other buses coming past now?
13:34Yes, here we are.
13:37Perfect timing.
13:40So tell me about the filling station, how this came about.
13:42So this filling station here was actually the first asset that the community company bought back in 2008.
13:49It's an essential facility, having a filling station on the peninsula.
13:53Otherwise, you have to drive for 45 minutes over to Loch Arran to get petrol and diesel.
13:57So it was threatened with closure, and the community company was created to set up and manage it.
14:02It's hard to imagine your local filling station, if it didn't exist anymore, that something that you're lying on,
14:06and indeed the other services, and it's very difficult to live in places.
14:10Absolutely. I mean, our population is sort of stabilising around.
14:14We have about 260 people living on a 26,000 hectare peninsula.
14:19It feels very fragile, and although that population is not going down,
14:22it's really essential that we step in to try and make it as easy as possible for people to still live here.
14:28Here we go.
14:30Do you need a helper to help you?
14:32You're very welcome. We're always looking for more volunteers.
14:34The Trust is about more than just fuel and transport.
14:38Community-owned homes, high-speed internet, community gardens, allotments, and public toilets are all under their banner.
14:46Services that, elsewhere in Scotland, councils and utility companies would provide.
14:52Public finances are so constrained at the moment.
14:57We've had to step in to fill the gap where it's been harder and harder for councils to deliver.
15:03And we feel a responsibility to do that, not just for the people who live here, but for visitors and businesses as well.
15:10Gordon Cameron is the director of the community company,
15:13and the mission to keep Applecross viable will soon be gathering more pace, right here in this field.
15:19Over the next few years, hopefully, the community company will be developing an affordable housing scheme.
15:25We'll be putting in a number of homes and maybe some business units as well.
15:29It's hugely important for us.
15:31Affordable housing is a massive issue, not just at Applecross, but across many parts of Scotland.
15:36And this is one way we feel that we can contribute to enhancing the viability and sustainability of the community.
15:43And what do you think Applecross will be like in 20 years' time?
15:46It will be a place where people can choose to come to and, importantly, choose to stay.
15:53We want to make sure that people have more of an opportunity to choose to be here and to find somewhere that they can call their home.
15:59And while the Trust are doing their best to make the shores of Applecross an attractive place to live for human inhabitants,
16:12our changing climate is drawing in new residents of a marine variety.
16:17And a bit further south now, discovering the impact of rising sea temperatures on Argyle's coastal wildlife.
16:25Loch Crierin sits on the south edge of the Apen Peninsula and, right now, the tide on this sea loch is in retreat, ebbing away, revealing another world.
16:39But there are bigger changes afoot on shorelines like this, and it's something that's caught the attention of the ecologist I'm about to meet.
16:52Professor Mike Burrows is a leading expert in the species that call rocky coastal habitats like this home.
16:59And it's the temperature of the water around our coastline that Mike is interested in.
17:10Average temperature since the early 2000s is maybe a half a degree more.
17:16And that doesn't sound like much, but it can have consequences.
17:18I've been doing a study for the last 20 years or so of how climate might be affecting the way that these communities of animals and plants are organised.
17:31There has been a shift in balance.
17:34It's small and it's quite subtle, but it's enough to be able to kind of detect a change in the community.
17:41The tide is going out. Is it low enough to go and take a closer look now?
17:45It certainly is. Let's go.
17:47Let's do it.
17:48Loch Creden is just one of 160 locations around the Scottish coast where Mike is studying the changes in marine life.
18:00So we've got a bingo card of species. There's 57 of them.
18:05And my aim is to fill a letter in for each one of these.
18:09So shall I put this down then?
18:10Let's do that right now.
18:12So here we go. And I can see there's at least a couple of species of seaweeds.
18:18So there's two kinds of racks here. There's egg rack, which is this one with the big bladders on it there, single bladders.
18:24The other kind of rack is this one here, which is bladder rack.
18:28Other things we've got. There's some nice barnacles here, just on this rock here, and there's a winkle.
18:35So what I would do at this point is count the number of squares in which each of those species occurs and judge them against a little scale here.
18:43Not quite a full house today, but Mike's work with barnacles over two decades is highlighting that shift imbalance he spoke about earlier.
18:53There are two different species of barnacles on this particular rock.
18:58Two? I mean, they just look like barnacles to me.
19:00They look very similar, but one of them's an arctic species, more or less, that finds its way to the UK at the south end of its distribution range.
19:10And the other one is a warm water species, which is actually from New Zealand.
19:15It came across in the Second World War on the bottom of ships.
19:17So over time, we're able to kind of look at the relative abundance of these two things.
19:23And what turns out is that as water's warm, warm-loving species increase in numbers, and the cold-loving species tend to decline.
19:32And these small creatures play a big part in their coastal ecosystems.
19:37Barnacles, they remove particles from the water.
19:40Organisms like this and mussels and oysters, they play a real role in clarifying our waters,
19:47making it clearer.
19:48And to some extent, it doesn't matter that a warm-water-loving form is replacing a cold-water-loving form,
19:56because the function is maintained over time.
19:59But Mike has discovered that not everything is being replaced like for like.
20:04Blue mussels do the same job as the barnacles, but they're disappearing.
20:09There are little pockets of them here on the rock, but once upon a time, would this have been completely covered in mussels?
20:15Entirely covered, entirely.
20:17So when I came here in 2003, almost the entire seashore was covered in one great big patch of mussels.
20:23And we're on the rocks here, but over on the more muddy places, there were mussel beds there too.
20:30And they have all gone.
20:31These are the last remaining patches.
20:34Might be related to climate change, but the story really isn't that clear just yet.
20:39And nothing so far has replaced the blue mussel and its water-purifying capability,
20:46not to mention the impact on the seabirds that eat the mussels.
20:51That's why there's still work for Mike to do,
20:54continuing to build up data about how species are faring in the face of climate change.
21:00We don't know the answers to everything here.
21:03We're seeing things happen, like the decline in the mussels,
21:06that we haven't really got a solid answer to yet.
21:09But, I mean, that's science.
21:11We have to accept that there are things we don't know,
21:14and we'll have to do more research to find out about in the future.
21:19The tide around Loch Creen may be constant,
21:21but, as we saw earlier in St Andrews,
21:24the only sure thing about our coastline is change.
21:36Back in Caithness, the craggy coastline is wild and unforgiving.
21:42Inhospitable, to say the least.
21:44I have heard stories, though, that even as late as the last century,
21:48whole families lived in caves below these cliffs.
21:53An old wives' tale, surely.
22:00To find out if there's any truth in this story,
22:03I've come to Wyck to meet someone who's looked into this in depth.
22:10I'm meeting Stephanie Watterson at Wyck Heritage Museum.
22:15It's home to an incredible collection of photographs,
22:18thousands of them.
22:20Genealogist Stephanie can show me a few
22:22that shed light on this remarkable lost history.
22:26Stephanie, how are you? Good to see you.
22:28Hi, nice to meet you, Dougie.
22:29And you too. What are we actually looking at here?
22:32Well, we're looking at a period of time from about 1865
22:36to about, roughly about 1910,
22:39where Highland travelling families
22:41had pretty much permanently occupied the caves for this period.
22:45How did they end up in caves?
22:47Well, essentially, they were legislated into these caves.
22:511865 was the Trespass Scotland Act,
22:54a direct hit against their travelling lifestyle.
22:57The Act made it a crime to camp on privately owned land without consent,
23:03restricting the places where travellers could go
23:06and forcing them, in Caithness at least, into caves.
23:11That photograph's sort of top right there,
23:13the huge family in the cave,
23:15the dirty faces, the guy in the corner.
23:18Looking pretty miserable.
23:19It's a very hard life.
23:21The photographs were taken by the Johnston family,
23:25a dynasty of photographers
23:27who chronicled life in Caithness
23:29throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
23:33Using the pictures and combing local newspaper reports,
23:36Stephanie discovered that families lived in caves
23:39dotted right round the Caithness coast.
23:43We're making our way to one of four inhabited caves outside Wick.
23:48What was going on in Wick at the time of those photographs?
23:51Well, there was a herring boom at this time
23:54and, of course, Wick was a very busy fishing port
23:58which attracted a lot of people in.
24:00Careful, it looks like it could be slippy.
24:02Yeah.
24:04And attracted, of course, the travellers in
24:06because they were working with tin
24:09and making pails and all sorts of useful items.
24:13But it's not easy to get...
24:15Get down here.
24:16...to this now.
24:16No.
24:17What it was like for them.
24:19It's not accessible, really, at all.
24:20Not really, no.
24:22As it starts to come into view,
24:24you really get a sense of how wild it is.
24:28Aye, it really is.
24:29And when you consider that we're at low tide just now.
24:31Yeah.
24:32Could you imagine if there was a big storm on?
24:35And then it starts to open up in front of us.
24:38Yeah.
24:39Goodness me.
24:44So what sort of things did you find out
24:46about this cave in particular?
24:47Well, there was an incredible amount of births
24:50and deaths at this cave recorded in censuses
24:53and birth, marriages and deaths.
24:56And, of course, in the newspaper,
24:57there was a lot of accounts of accidents
24:59because of the treacherous nature of the living here.
25:02It's a very dangerous place.
25:04It is.
25:05Stephanie uncovered records of fatal falls from the cliffs.
25:09Drowning, disease and destitution.
25:12Over the years, there were 30 births in the cave.
25:16And the 1871 census reveals that an extended family of 15 were living here.
25:23But in the same way that legislation forced the travellers into the caves,
25:28it also pushed them back out.
25:32Clearly there's no people living here anymore.
25:34When did that stop?
25:36That stopped just before World War I.
25:38And this was to do with the Children's Act,
25:41the Education Act and the Defence of the Realm Act,
25:43which prohibited bonfires out coastlines.
25:47The travellers had to leave.
25:50But for a time, these unwelcoming caves outside Wick were a home.
25:57Being out here, not too far from the town, but far enough away,
26:02so there's a barrier, isn't it, between them and the rest of the place?
26:07Absolutely, yeah.
26:08I think there was a lot of different viewpoints at the time,
26:11but I think I could probably sum it up
26:12by showing you an article from the John O'Groat Journal.
26:16A member of the public wrote this in to the editor,
26:18and it's called Our Nomadic Population.
26:21And it says,
26:21They have fought out a long battle with society,
26:24and they have retired from point to point
26:26till they now live between rock and ocean
26:29as a solemn protest against all who fight with them.
26:33That's amazing, isn't it?
26:35It's incredible.
26:36And I think it really encapsulates what was going on here.
26:46The remarkable story of the Caithness cave dwellers.
26:50And that brings us to the end of this programme.
26:53Here's what's coming up next time.
26:55Everything's in need of repair.
26:57There's a fish.
26:59Oh, yes, I see it.
27:00Arlene helps out on the 4th and Clyde Canal.
27:03I've got my first fish.
27:06I'm discovering a new path in Wester Ross.
27:10And Cammie tries a bit of tractor maintenance.
27:14Stripping things down.
27:15Do you remember where all the bits go to put them back, though?
27:17No.
27:17Please join us for that and much, much more if you can.
27:22In the meantime, from all the Landmark teams
27:24around the coastline of this glorious country,
27:27thank you so much for your company.
27:28Bye for now.