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Haddo House lost 100,000 trees during Storm Arwen

Blair Nichols / NTS Haddo estateBlair Nichols / NTS
An aerial image from Haddo House showed the extent of the damage to the woodlands.

Recovering from the loss of tens of thousands of trees during Storm Arwen at an estate in Aberdeenshire will take a generation, it has been warned.

Haddo House lost an estimated 100,000 trees, and as many as half a million on the wider estate.

The damage was caused during the high storm winds on 26 November.

National Trust for Scotland (NTS) said its eight properties in the north east of Scotland were particularly badly impacted.

An aerial image from Haddo House showed the extent of the damage to the woodlands.

Suzanna Atkinson, visitor services officer at Aberdeenshire Council's Haddo Country Park, told BBC Scotland's The Nine: "We believe we've lost about 100,000 trees, or we certainly think that's how many trees we'll have to replant."

She said rebuilding was "not going to happen in my lifetime" and the estate needed to begin regrowing.

"At some point in future generations people will be able to see it as beautiful as it was a week past Friday," she added.

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NTS landscape manager Chris Wardle said it was a "one in 100-year" incident and would take a considerable time to clear the fallen trees.

"The damage has been extensive, where it's been bad, it's been really really bad. We've lost a lot of big old historic trees", he said.

"Replacing trees that are of an antiquity is really really difficult, the one thing that we can't do it speed up time and unfortunately time is what is needed to repair the environment around us.

"The best thing we can do is clear up and replant."

Clearance work
Work is ongoing to clear the fallen trees

Wildlife habitats for animals such as squirrels have also been impacted.

"The high winds have blown down many trees on the majority of our north east estates, blocking trails and access tracks, and causing other damage to the trail network and countryside infrastructure", he said.

Haddo is currently closed on safety grounds.

Many places will need specialist forestry support to clear the uprooted trees and loose high-hanging branches.

NTS chief executive Philip Long described the scale of the damage as "immense".