Balloch Community Woodland

Creetown Landscape

Balloch Wood is categorised as a Narrow wooded river valley in the Dumfries and Galloway Landscape Assessment.

The key characteristics of this landscape character found at Balloch Wood are:

  • The narrow incised valley with steep wooded slopes.
  • The dominant broadleaf woodland adjacent to the burn with conifers on higher slopes.
  • The small pastures enclosed with drystone dykes above the woodland.
  • The narrow lane following the valley and providing access to higher moorland.
  • The narrow wooded valley contrasts with the open character of the estuarine flats below and the moorland on the nearby hill tops, providing an important backdrop to Creetown, connecting the town on the coastal fringe to the surrounding uplands.
  • Elevations range from 30m, in the valley bottoms, up to 100m at the top of the wood. 
  • The low elevations and steeper slopes have resulted in generally freely draining brown forest soils on valley terraces with poorer peaty gley soils on the wetter depressions and gentler slopes.