With sweeping vistas across Loch Crinan to Duntrune Castle and the Argyll coastline, there are few woods with a more breathtaking outlook than Crinan Wood.

This ancient Atlantic oakwood experiences a wet and mild climate and drips with ferns, mosses, fungi and lichen. It is a wonderful example of Scotland’s rare and special rainforest. The wood is also brimming with wildlife, including the iconic red squirrel. Crinan Wood is definitely one of our must-see gems.

Wildlife and habitats

Animals

Crinan Wood is teeming with wildlife and a visit to the woods and the wider area gives you a chance to see three of Scotland’s ‘Big Five’ iconic wild animals, including red squirrel, otter, red deer and harbour seal. Look out too for bats and pearl-bordered fritillary butterflies.

Trees, plants and fungi

The warm and wet weather brought by the Gulf Stream has created Scotland’s very own rainforest, a rare habitat where trees are cloaked in colourful lichens and bryophytes (mosses and liverworts). The wood also has a number of interesting phoenix trees - trees which have fallen and then regrown - creating fascinating shapes. To the south of the site there is some more recent planting dating from the 19th century, mainly of beech and sycamore.

Habitats

A rich mixture of ancient Atlantic oakwood, open glades, heathland and wet woodland make up the diverse habitats of Crinan Wood. Admire the gnarled veteran trees, the heathlands strewn with swathes of heather, bluebell and foxglove and the ethereal areas of wet woodland.

About Crinan Wood

History

Crinan Wood is alive with history. The wood contains the remains of two forts or ‘duns’ dating from the Iron Age, and has views of the 12th-century Duntrune Castle on the other side of Loch Crinan. The 14.4km-long (9-mile) Crinan Canal, which opened in 1801, was built to provide a navigable trading route between the Clyde and the Inner Hebrides, and has been called ‘the most beautiful shortcut in the world’.

In the 19th century, large quantities of timber were harvested from the wood at Crinan. They provided materials for a range of industries: charcoal for iron smelting, bark for tanning leather, and distillation of acid used in cloth printing which took place in Crinan’s ‘vinegar factory’.

Crinan was probably named after the Creones, a tribe believed to have lived in the area from around AD 140.