HRH The Princess Royal officially opened Scotland’s First World War Centenary Wood in the Pentland Hills near Edinburgh, unveiling a stone structure created as a space to rest, reflect and remember those who lived through the First World War.
Her Royal Highness also planted a rowan tree to complete a grove within the woods dedicated to the hundreds of soldiers from Leith who died in the Quintinshill Rail Disaster. Rowan, known in folklore as the traveller’s tree, was chosen to remember those who never returned from the long journey from Scotland to the front lines.
While Her Royal Highness planted the tree, fiddler Thoren Ferguson played a specially written tune entitled ‘The Lads of Quintinshill, 1915’ on a violin crafted from a sycamore branch sourced from the grounds of Costorphine Hospital in memory of war poet Wilfred Owen.
Photos : Helen Pugh Photography
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