The Reid Loch at Witchhill, Memsie

The Reid Loch
The Red (or Reid) Loch is the remains of the  larger swamp or loch of Kinglasser which was progressively drained during the 17th and 18th centuries. An unspoiled secluded gem, the loch nestles in, mainly deciduous woodland, on the Witchill Estate south of Fraserburgh.

Birch trees line sections of the path which follows the lochside. Bracken was just starting to unfurl beside the path and there were large patches of very pale pink purslane and scatterings of wood sorrel. 

Delicate white flowers of wood sorrel, tinged with pale mauve veins.

A massive fallen beech tree, coming into leaf despite having been completely uprooted by the winter gales.

The trunk had an enormous girth, lying on its side it reached to shoulder height. Graffiti on bark had part of a date ending in 90 the question is was it 1890 or 1990?


In his autobiography, A Buchan Boy', Hubert Mitchell, recalling boyhood visits during the 1930s, to the Witchhill estate, the home of his uncle A.G.Brown, Provost of Fraserburgh and Factor to Lord Saltoun,  describes crossing 'the beech hollow, which was carpeted with rich red gold leaves from which the trees rose like great cathedral pillars. On some were carved the initials and hearts of lovers, Victorians of the last century.'

The mixed plantings of trees, mainly birch, beech, alder, elder, sycamore and rowan with the occasional pine which now surround the loch appear only on the west side in the 1869 OS map but are marked round the shores by the 1928 edition. This map also shows a boathouse referred to by Mitchell, a military looking, metal container like structure which remains on the eastern bank. 

Creamy flowers of Alpine or Red Berried Elder (Sambucus racemosa). The flowers of this species grow in pyramids rather than the flat wide clusters of the more common elder.

Bluebells on the edge of the wood

An  unfurling crosier frond of bracken

Hubert goes on to mention a heronry near the loch, we saw only a pair of unidentified ducks towards the middle of the  shallow loch but unseen woodpeckers were enthusiastically drumming in the trees.

Silver Birch trees infected with the parasitic Witches' Broom fungus (Taphrina betulina) which causes these bunches of twigs resembling birds' nests to form on the infected branches.

According to David Murison the name Witchhill is entirely fanciful and only appears after the building of Witchhill House for Lord Saltoun's factor in 1849. There is no record of witch craft in the area but the name may have been suggested by the nearby Merryhillock or by Hippiehillock in the Philorth policies. Hippie (happy)   is supposed to be a euphemistic reference to the fairy folk who in folk legends lured mortals into  their hillocks where they were kept prisoner in a fairy dance lasting for days or even years.