Flower power boost for Led Zep star’s house of the unholy

Long after he left, the property became the Highland home of Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page. A collector of Crowley memorabilia, he was fascinated by the practitioner of the dark arts.

Destroyed by fire which only served to add to its mystique, and being restored – boosted by a controversial £250,000 National Lottery Heritage Fund grant - Boleskine House’s forbidding image now has a far more colourful outlook.

Emerging from its grim Satanic shadows, it is now being hailed as a shining beacon for Mother Nature.

Millions of Scottish wildflower seeds and a two-year planting project by The Boleskine House Foundation have transformed five acres of unremarkable grassy slopes around the scene of Crowley’s efforts to raise the dead into the largest wildflower meadow in the Loch Ness region.

Now in full bloom, vibrant fields of vibrant Ox-eye daisy, yellow-rattle, foxglove and dozens of other native species bring the buzz of bees, butterflies, insects and, the charity behind it hope, tourists to an area once shrouded in the mysteries of the underworld.

Boleskine House before being destroyed by fire

Occultist Crowley, known as the Great Beast 666 and once described as ‘the most evil man in the world’, bought Boleskine in 1899 with plans to use it for black magic’ rituals.  The house, on the site of a kirk, was owned by guitarist Jimmy Page before being almost destroyed by fire in 2015.

The Foundation is said to be rebuilding it as a base for yoga, art, music and film. It has previously stressed it is not intended to become a place of "pilgrimage and ritual", adding that while the previous owners were part of the story of the property, they did not "directly influence its future use".

Keith Readdy, chairman of the group, says the meadow could become a lure for pollinators and people: “We have transformed the land from a once-abandoned field into a beautiful place for people to enjoy and for bees and wildlife to thrive.

The new wildflower meadow at Boleskine House (Image: Boleskine House Foundation)

“For the first time since planting, we are seeing remarkable colour and growth in the meadow.

“Such meadows and the species they attract, such as bees, have been in decline since the mid-20th century.

“This is a big push to bring in local biodiversity while at the same time forwarding nature-based tourism to the area.”

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The meadow’s unusual location is just one of many now in bloom across the country, as organisations and community groups see efforts to restore some of Scotland’s once vibrant landscape of wildflowers finally burst into bloom.

From roadsides verges and patches of neglected land to the fringes of golf courses and council parks are now emerging dazzling crops of jewel-like blooms: flowers which once were a familiar part of the landscape for generations long before mowing and pesticides took over.

Wildflowers in bloom in the Boleskine House meadow (Image: Boleskine House Foundation)

Such as in Fife, where the council grounds maintenance squad  manages over 700,000m2 of wildflower meadow land. To ‘turbo boost’ wildflower growth, they have used a tractor-mounted overseeder which directly sows additional wildflower seeds into existing wildflower areas in some urban parks.

In the Borders, the Tweed Meadows Project is among several around the country given cash from Scottish Government’s Nature Restoration Fund to boost wildflowers. It is spending £140,000 to restore 53 hectares to make it pollinator-friendly for bees and bugs.

Wildflower efforts range from small in scale: in the little village of Errol in Perthshire locals are sowing wildflowers on patches of land around their homes, while in Moray the local authority is creating a network of wildflower sites and living lawns from Aberlour to Rothes.

In the central belt, 50 sites along the 134 miles of the John Muir Way have been turned into wildlife meadows.

Wildflowers in bloom beside the Forth and Clyde Canal at Camelon (Image: Buglife)

Industrial and urban settings are also being transformed: eight large wildflower meadows have been created along Edinburgh’s shoreline promenade at Cramond, and former coalfield sites from Ayrshire to Fife and Stirlingshire are in bloom with vipers bugloss, red clove and ladies bedstraw.

And in Glasgow, a £1.5 million citywide ‘Green Connectors’ project has involved planting a  3.3km stretch of central reservation on Great Western Road with 10,000m2 of wildflowers including cowslips, grape hyacinth, narcissus, ox eye daisies, snakes head fritillary and crocus. 

At the heart of many wildflower projects is concern over the plight of the bumblebee and other pollinators: plant experts say the UK has lost 97% seven million hectares of its flower-rich grassland over the past 70 years, contributing to a drastic decline of around two-thirds of pollinating insects.

But, says a new report from Plantlife Scotland, often the country’s wildflower meadows and species-rich grasslands are overlooked for the vital role they also play in carbon capture and combatting climate change.

It says there is now an urgent need for them to be regarded in the same breath as peatlands and woodlands for their role in biodiversity, carbon capture and contribution to natural heritage.

Its new report, Machair to Meadows, highlights the risks from intensive farming, nitrogen fertilisers and pollution, climate change and inappropriate tree planting.

And it calls for a major Scottish Government strategy to protect existing species-rich grasslands, with incentives for new ones, placing them on a par with peatland restoration and woodlands.

Jo Riggall of Plantlife Scotland says although projects like Boleskine House are creating delightful new wildflower meadows, their role extends beyond attracting bees and butterflies.

Bees make use of wildflowers at Linn Park, Glasgow (Image: Buglife/Suzanne Burgess)

“Species-rich grasslands are being hugely undervalued and neglected in policy and practice,” she says.

“All these projects are incredibly positive, but often it’s a drop in the ocean.

“Because grasslands are so undervalued we don’t have the monitoring and data for them that exists for peatlands and woodlands.

“There’s not been enough effort put into tracking how these restoration projects add up.

“So, it’s hard to tell if these projects are making a difference in Scotland. We have lost so much.

“Without a proper programme of monitoring restoration efforts, how can we even know how many pockets are being restored?”

Wildflowers in bloom near homes at Muirton, Perth (Image: Buglife/Suzanne Burgess)

The organisation warns that although over a third of Scotland’s land is covered by grassland, most is agricultural and bereft of the kaleidoscope of plants and flowers which best benefit pollinators, insects and other wildlife.

It adds: “Species rich grasslands are intrinsic to Scotland’s biodiversity, history, and identity whilst producing food and playing an often-overlooked role in tackling climate change,” it adds.

“However, they are facing tremendous threats.

“Urgent action is needed to meet societal needs and national and international commitments, alongside securing the floristic and fungal future of Scotland’s precious grassland heritage.”

Plantlife Scotland says it hopes the Scottish Government’s forthcoming biodiversity delivery plan, due for publication soon, will include new measures to specifically support grasslands and meadows.

A spokesperson for government agency NatureScot, said: “In less than a century we’ve lost almost all our wildflower meadows. There are very few meadows left, yet they are incredibly biodiverse habitats that support hundreds of specialist plants, insects and fungi and are particularly important for pollinators.

“Through Scottish Government’s Nature Restoration Fund, we’ve been able to support a number of wildflower meadow and species-rich grassland restoration projects across the country and it’s fantastic to see the regeneration of these vital habitats.”

Jo adds: “Like peatlands and trees, which are widely recognised as carbon mitigating spaces, rich grasslands can do that as well - they sequestrate carbon and store it underground.

“All these projects are amazing but without a strategic approach from the Scottish Government they are not going to add up to much or we won’t know if they are.”

Jo adds: “Without that we will be losing more of our natural heritage without knowing.”

Where are all the butterflies?

Pollinator numbers have plunged due to climate change, loss of habitat, pesticide use and intensive farming which has fragmented and isolated flower-rich areas.

In the UK, 97% of wildflower-rich land – seven million hectares – has been lost due to modern agricultural methods and out-of-town developments since the 1940s.

According to conservation group Butterfly Conservation, butterfly numbers are currently the lowest recorded in the 14-year history of its Big Butterfly Count.

It says 80% of butterflies in the UK have declined since the 1970s, due to habitat loss, climate change and pesticide use.

The apparent lack of butterflies has also been highlighted by Top Gear presenter and farmer Jeremy Clarkson, who recently spoke of his alarm at the lack of butterflies on his land.

White-tailed bee, Bombus lucorum, is found in Scottish gardens, farms, woodlands and meadows (Image: Buglife)

Bees are also in crisis, according to conservation charity Buglife. It says around half of the UK’s 27 bumblebee species are in decline and three species have become extinct.

Seven bumblebee species have declined by more than 50% in the last 25 years, and two-thirds of UK moths are in long term decline.