In 1714, just as the Jacobite rebellion was breaking out, Sir John Erskine, a distant descendant of Robert Bruce, discovered a promising mineral vein on his estate at Alva House, near Stirling. Leaving to support the rebels in Europe, he put his wife in charge of the mine, together with the mine manager James Hamilton. In only a few months, 40 tons of silver ore - the biggest amount ever found in the British Isles - were mined and buried in barrels for safekeeping.
The Erskines would have preferred to keep the find to themselves, but Hamilton had other ideas. He took samples to London where they were tested by the master of the mint, Sir Isaac Newton, and declared to be extremely rich. Sir John, by then a wanted man in voluntary exile in France, was granted a pardon on condition he gave 10 per cent of the mines'' proceeds to the government. But while silver was found, it never approached the richness of the original samples. And the 40 tons buried in barrels were never seen again.
Sir John used his fortune to improve his estate, including the establishment of Wood Hill Wood, believed to be one of the earliest plantations in Scotland. "The wood is on a steep south-facing slope in the Ochils, where there''s not a lot of woodland about, so it really stands out in the landscape," says woodland officer Jill Aitken. "There''s a good mix of native and exotic species, with sycamore dominating the lower slopes, ash, birch and oak halfway up and open grassland with scattered larch and Scots pine at the top. In places, dog''s mercury covers the ground, and mosses are frequent over the mid slopes, particularly where it''s rocky. Buzzards nest in the area, and there is plenty of fallen and standing deadwood throughout."
The mines have long been closed, and nowadays only small fragments of silver ore are washed into the fast-flowing Silver Burn which carves its way down the glen, but every so often, as part of the Scottish Geology Festival, the Geologist Association runs special events in the wood allowing modern-day miners to try their hand at panning for silver.
Fact File:
Wood: Wood Hill Wood
Region: Clackmannanshire
Nearest village: Alva
Size: 79 hectares (196 acres)
Grid reference: NS898978, OS Landranger 58
Designation Area of Great Landscape Value, ancient woodland site (long-established plantation origin)
http://www.woodland-trust.org.uk/