It was well-known Scottish fiddler Pete Clark who introduced me to two of Murthly Estate’s great arboreal treasures. Living and working in Perthshire, he had been so inspired by these gargantuan trees, the famous Birnam oak and its near neighbour, an impressive giant sycamore, that he was moved to produce two CDs with the Niel Gow Ensemble in celebration of the trees, both thought to be nearly 1000 years old.

They stand on the bank of the River Tay, downstream from Dunkeld Bridge; gnarled and twisted trunks, vast branches; the oak, almost totally hollow, surely nearing the end of a life that has witnessed events far beyond our ken. Murthly Estate’s trees inspired me when on my inaugural visit I interviewed the clerk of works, John Melloy, about his vintage tractor collection. Vast redwaoods at the bottom of his garden took the breath away.

Perhaps I should not admit that the trees were of far greater interest than the tractors. As we stood beneath a magnificent lime avenue and heard the hum of bees, and he later showed me a mere fraction of the other trees on the estate, I became mesmerised; a huge avenue of alternate yew and lime trees, a line of Blue Atlas cedars, Spanish chestnuts and glorious beeches, and the extraordinary eerie Dead Walk. This consists of ancient yews forming a dense walkway from the castle down to the 16th century chapel: a path the Laird of Murthly traditionally only travels down once – en route to the grave. Incidentally, he may walk up the Dead Walk as often as he likes. The little I saw had captivated me. I had to return. It was a day of autumnal bluster when I did so. Having waited for colours to change, the wind was tearing the leaves off with gusto and the distant hills were coming and going in great sheets of rain, ink on blotting paper spreading dark hues across an erratic sky. Shafts of light broke through to momentarily reveal magical views.

There had been frost at dawn; it had all been fleeting, frustrating; so much to see, so little light. I met the present laird of Murthly, Thomas Steuart Fothringham, the following day in horizontal rain. Leaves passed us at speed. Unassuming, highly intelligent, and with a consuming passion for trees, though he has always adored Murthly and spent many holidays here, on leaving school he admits that initially he rather resented having his life mapped out for him, and the assumption that he would take over this stunning Perthshire estate. He travelled and spent time teaching, and did an MBA at Edinburgh University, before marrying and returning to take over the estate, with the difficult remit of having to turn things round in order to make it pay in a very short time. He and his wife Kate and two young sons, James and Sandy, have settled here and seem content to make this their life’s work. Thomas refers to it as a challenge. He also admits that at the start he knew little or nothing about trees.

If records and statistics are important, then Murthly can lay claim to a great list of them; they have dozens of trees that the Tree Register has classified as Perthshire, Scottish, or UK and Eire champions, be it for height, girth, or antiquity. But Thomas also admits that facts and figures are all very well but it is surely the sheer power and beauty of the trees, his desire to learn more about them, protect them and to make his own mark on this incredible sylvan landscape, that is the driving force. ‘If we had a motto for the woods here, it would have to be Douglas firs are us’ he tells me. With a huge concentration of Douglas firs laid out in stunning terraces all round the policies, even in inclement weather one is immediately enwrapped by their great skyward stretch, their sweet, delicious aroma, like burnt sugar, overwhelming the musky one of fox and badger. We walk through the woods surrounding the castle.

There is hardly a tree that does not take the breath away – an island of monkey puzzles in the game crop beneath, a vast sitka spruce with a champion bastion-like girth, almost unrecognisable when compared to its commercially reared counterparts, a huge thuja near the chapel that Thomas points out has literally walked in tree terms and thrown many smaller trunks off in all directions. ‘Eventually the main one will die off and leave the younger offshoots.’ The chapel clock strikes midday and fills the wood with its comforting clamour as pheasants explode noisily in the woods below and Thomas points out a champion hornbeam. An enormously tall Lawson cypress is filled with the mousy calls of tiny goldcrests. Thomas’s ancestors made their mark on Murthly.

In 1842, Sir William Drummond Stewart brought back from North America a mass of unusual conifers that included many Douglas firs. His successors, Sir Douglas Stewart and Walter Steuart Fothringham, also carried out intense planting which included Serbian spruce (now thought to be the tallest in the world outside its native habitat) Chilean pine, mountain and western hemlock. Thomas’s father, Robert Steuart Fothringham, 13th Stewart laird, took over Murthly in the 1970s and worked hard to regenerate the trees, adding many new ones including an avenue of oaks and larches, whitebeams, rhododendrons and azaleas. ‘I needed to learn exactly what we had and it has been a great pleasure to do so.

My uncle Henry brought Tom Christian here, who was very interested in the trees and has since become a student at the Royal Botanical Garden in Edinburgh. He is now our main liaison for the International Conifer Conservation Project and has taken on a wider development and conservation role, introducing all kinds of rare trees that are threatened in their native habitat. We have been selected as a safe site and I am now very involved in this work and have recently planted many trees as well as an avenue of Chilean and Tasmanian trees: yews, cedars and alerces.’ With such excellent shelter, good drainage and sandy soil, the trees thrive.

Other new additions have been Himalayan larches, and a selection of unusual trees from Morocco and Japan. ‘We now have trees here from every continent, and I am trying to keep them together in various areas. We have about 5-6 specialist groups visiting Murthly each year and I learn a great deal from each of them. ‘I do realise that I am just part of this for now and that the work will be eternal. I am lucky too to have John Melloy, who has been here for 36 years and is my right hand man, and we have a gardener who at 83 still does a couple of days a week. We also have an excellent full-time gardener who came to us from Threave; before the war there were eight.’ We stand on a high bank overlooking a wild area fringed by a lochan looking through to parkland with its enormous, oaks, sycamores, chestnuts and the distant blue of cedars.

Behind us maples glow red-gold despite the vagaries of the climate. A red squirrel shins up a totem pole-like chestnut trunk, the chapel clock chimes hauntingly. Beautiful Murthly could have no better guardian than Thomas Steuart Fothringham, and there is little doubt that like his ancestors, he too will be shaping one of Britain’s most glorious woodlands.

FIELD FACTS Murthly Estate, nr Dunkeld, Perthshire Tel: 01738 494 121 www.murthly-estate.com