40 years of championing a key national resource – Scotland’s Finest Woods Awards

Scotland’s Finest Woods Awards is marking 40 years of celebrating all that is great about the country’s woodlands and forests.

The Awards celebrate the people involved across all types of Scotland's woodlands who through their dedication make them the finest examples of a key national natural resource.

The Awards started at a time when many of the large estates employed their own foresters, and they focused on growing quality timber.

These woodlands provide us with many of the examples of quality woodlands we have today. Commercial forests cover about 1 million ha of Scotland and contribute £1.1bn GVA, employing more than 10,000 people.

Scotland’s Finest Woods’ Quality Timber category has three awards to reflect the importance of good forest management.

But Scotland’s Finest Woods Awards are unique because they demonstrate the broad range of forestry across Scotland, with the strong origins in productive forestry as well as other great examples of woodland management across society.

The Tim Stead Trophy, awarded to the best community woodland in the country, is an integral part of this. And this year also marks 25 years since the sculptor, whose main medium was wood, passed away.

Tim Stead helped set up the Wooplaw community woodland near Lauder in 1987. It was the first of its kind in Britain and he is laid to rest within its peaceful setting.

His widow, Maggy Stead, said: “People have latched on to it and been inspired to create community woodlands across Scotland. Now, Scotland can be proud of what has been achieved over the past 40 years or so.”

She added: “What I witnessed was that for Tim, planting hardwood forests, managing woodlands, making children aware of the importance of planting trees, these aspects of man’s husbandry with nature, were as important to him as making art.”

Scotland’s Finest Woods is thrilled to be custodians of the Tim Stead Trophy, which he made in 1986 as part of his Axes for Trees project, which involved making one wooden axe head for every day of the year, and selling them to raise money to plant trees.

As well as supporting craftsmen to develop the skills needed to make full use of local, native timbers, he was an enthusiastic environmentalist so it is also appropriate to have climate change at the heart of the awards.

Origins of the awards

In 1985, a notice in Scottish Forestry, the Royal Scottish Forestry Society’s (RSFS)  Journal announced: “A new scheme of forestry awards is being instituted by the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland with the support of the Forestry Commission, Timber Growers U.K. (Scotland), the Royal Scottish Forestry Society and the Institute of Chartered Foresters.

“The purpose of the scheme is to focus public attention on the increasing importance of the forestry industry in the rural and national economy; to give credit to the best achievements of forestry management for the production of timber; to encourage owners to make provision for the enhancement of the landscape, conservation of the natural habitat, recreation, public access and integration with other land use.”

And thus, Scotland’s Finest Woods Awards were born. The first competitions were held in 1986. Then, in 1999, a fuller partnership developed to include a number of forestry and environmental organisations to better reflect contemporary woodland management and Scotland’s rapidly developing forest industry. Finally, an independent charity was established in 2005 to run the awards.

A broad focus

Simon MacGillivray was a director when the Scotland’s Finest Woods was set up as a standalone charity in 2005. He and his colleagues saw this as a point where the focus had to broaden from not just timber production and farming to schools and the community, including the Tim Stead Trophy.

The Gardening Scotland Show at Ingliston was chosen as the new venue for the awards ceremony, with some added celebrity. Simon said: “We wanted a public audience for forestry, using the RSFS stall.

“Jim McColl from the (BBC) Beechgrove Garden gave the awards and when you get that celebrity it mixes well with the public. They got involved and were able to ask for advice about trees in their gardens.

“Jim McColl was a star for us and would go out with me to schools as well.”

Charlie Taylor is a three-time winner and then became a judge, allowing him to the see the benefits of entering from both sides.

His wins came with his work with the then Forestry Commission Scotland – the Hunter Blair Trophy for Silvicultural Excellence for Faskally Forest, Perthshire in 1996, and the John Kennedy Trophy for Multi-purpose Forestry for Allean Forest in 2000 and Kinnoull Woodland Park, Perth in 2003.

He sees the wins as a team effort, something he noticed as a judge in the Quality Timber section, which has made him positive about the future.

He said: “You are there as a judge to have a conversation and share knowledge. In the last few years there has been a lot of new, younger forest managers, sharing their experience.

“One of the things for people in forestry is they don’t tend to blow their own trumpet. Scotland’s Finest Woods Awards gives folk recognition.”

Still growing

For 2025, there is a new category of Urban Forestry, as well as the existing categories of Quality Timber, Farm Woodland, New Native Wood, Community Woodland, Climate Change and Schools and Early Years.

Shireen Chambers was also once a judge for the awards, and is now Chief Executive of Future Woodlands Scotland, which has just been announced as the sponsor of the new Urban Forestry Award.

She agrees that judges can benefit entrants, and has some fond memories of visiting all types of woodland. “We judged everything,” she said. “We took a week and did a tour of Scotland – it was a hoot!

“It was interesting to see different approaches and you could compare … a community woodland in Nairn to one in Dumfries, and you could then suggest things.”

Shireen is very excited about the new award. She said: “Scotland is one of the most urban-centric countries in the world; over 80% live in the Central Belt. Getting kids out and understanding urban forestry is important, it can be where they get their only education about trees.”

There are also health benefits, she said greenspaces help with recovery from hospital treatment and that “less children develop asthma when there are trees in cities”. “It is not an add on, it is intrinsic to development.”

Mairi Gougeon MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform & Islands, presented many of the Awards last year.

She said: “Forty years of the Scottish Finest Woods Awards is a fantastic achievement – and I want to congratulate everyone involved.

“It’s no wonder that the awards are thriving and that is down to the passion and dedication of all those who work so hard across all aspects of forestry and woodlands in Scotland.

“It’s fantastic to see the categories for the awards grow, showcasing the wide variety of great work taking place across both rural and urban Scotland. It’s particularly great to see the involvement and recognition of the work young people are doing, hopefully as they become our foresters of the future.”

Jean Nairn, Executive Director of Scotland’s Finest Woods, said the future looks bright: “The Trustees remain committed to encourage the good management of all types of woodland in Scotland.

“Our roots in recognising the best practice and importance of Quality Timber have grown to champion all forms of woodland and forestry, whether a school or urban wood, a farm woodland, new native wood or community project – all with the underlying importance of trying to mitigate the climate emergency.”

Enter Scotland’s Finest Woods Awards 2025 now

Schools and Early Years entries closed on March 31, 2025. All other entries must be submitted by 23:59 on Saturday May 31, 2025.

For full details, criteria and entry forms see: www.sfwa.co.uk

PANEL – The early winners and the original trophies

In 1986 Ardgarten Forest (managed by the then Forestry Commission, now Forestry and Land Scotland) won the John Kennedy Trophy for Multi-purpose Forestry.

Also that year, The Duke of Buccleuch (for Drumlanrig, Dumfriesshire) won the Hunter Blair Trophy for Silvicultural Excellence.

The 1986 awards in the “10 to 49 hectare classes” were presented with the Lilburn Trophy to Cumlodden Woodlands, the property of Sir Hay Campbell, and the Fassfern Woodlands, property of Lord Dulverton – both clients of Scottish Woodlands.

The Dulverton Flagon, was awarded for sustainable woodland management to Major G.K. Agnew.

Here are the intriguing stories about those early trophies:

John Kennedy Trophy for Multi-purpose Woodlands

This Award is for multi-purpose woodlands where a number of different activities are taking place within a woodland or forest. For example, in addition to timber production, these could be recreation or a visitor centre and/or conservation. The size of the forest or woodlands is not restricted, but must be appropriate to and capable of sustaining the stated objectives.

The John Kennedy Memorial Trophy, a splendid silver rose bowl, was presented by the Forestry Commission for a competition to encourage ‘forestry in harmony with the environment’ and in memory of John Kennedy, the Forestry Commissioner responsible for forest management, who died in 1985.

The Hunter Blair Trophy for Silvicultural Excellence

The Hunter Blair Trophy for Silvicultural Excellence is awarded for a stand or compartment of trees where the exemplary use of forestry techniques, practice and management results in high quality timber production.

The silver salver was originally presented by Sir James Hunter Blair of Blairquhan Castle to the Royal Scottish Forestry Society as a prize for an ‘annual Competition for Woodland Management’.

Sir James was a keen forester serving as a District Officer with the Forestry Commission in the 1920s before returning to Ayrshire to manage the family estate at Blairquhan. Here he pursued his enthusiasm for silviculture and took great delight in testing forestry students and more experienced foresters on the identification of the more unusual specimens to be found at Blairquhan.

The Lilburn Trophy

The Royal Highland & Agricultural Society of Scotland gifted the magnificent Lilburn Trophy to Scotland’s Finest Woods in 2018, when it created a new award for Farm Woodlands.  The competition is to reward the very best of Scotland’s Farm Woodlands that form part of good agricultural practise. The winning farmers are judged as demonstrating exemplary use of both woodland and agricultural practise with benefits being delivered to both the farm’s operations and quality of woodland management.

The Dulverton Flagon

The distinctive Dulverton Flagon was first awarded to the winners of a sustainable woodland management competition to promote The Forestry & Woodland Code produced by the then woodland owners’ association, Timber Growers United Kingdom. The flagon was generously provided by the then Lord Dulverton, an enthusiastic advocate of forestry in Scotland and in the House of Lords.

The competition ran from 1986 to 1994 but the trophy had a subsequent outing in 1999 when the S W England region of the by then re-titled Timber Growers Association provided it as a prize at Exeter Races when Walter’s Destiny romped home to snatch the coveted flagon!

The flagon was not to see active service again until 2010 when the Crown Estate’s Glenlivet Estate was rewarded in the Scotland’s Finest Woods’ Silver Jubilee Competition.

The flagon is not tied to a particular competition but is available for award each year at the judges’ discretion.

ENDS