Previous Newsletters
July 2008
In this issue:
- You Have Been Warned ...
- New! Improved!
- New Woodland Workshop Gallery
- Tree Of The Month - Scots Pine
You Have Been Warned ...
Courses as far away (!) as October are now very nearly full (for example, the 23rd/24th October Totem Pole Carving course has just one place left). I know, I've said it before, but really - it's true: if you have your eye on a course do book up early. Places are limited and once a course is full, it's full.
New! Improved!
In this month's round up of what has been happening down here in the woods there is really only one story ... the new woodland workshop.
Regular readers will know that I've been confident that the new location will be better, excited about moving and enthusiastic about getting down to work actually building it, but there aren't many better feelings than having your hopes met - and indeed exceeded.
Since we left Mangerton for the last time we've been working seven days a week building and preparing the new woodland workshop and we made it in time for the Pole Lathe course last Thursday / Friday ... just. I don't think I've ever been so tired as on the Wednesday night beforehand.
For those readers who are familiar with and perhaps even attached to the old venue, I can now report - on the basis of reality and not just my plans - that we are absolutely delighted with the new workshop. What's more, we have incorporated a number of improvements based on our experience at Mangerton.
The first thing you'll notice is that the guests' path from the farm to the workshop is on firm ground - quite an achievement considering it was VERY boggy just five weeks ago - and a wood-chip path now winds its way through the hedgerow oak and ashes, and through the woods over a series of wooden bridges to the workshop area.
Once you're in the workshop, the main area now has gravel drainage under the wood-chip so any rainwater is dispersed immediately, and we have improved the parachute ceilings significantly. We've taken one segment out and re-sewn them to increase the pitch and they are now supported on two enormous tripods that we constructed from thinned conifers in the woods. Previous guests may remember that the old parachutes were supported by ropes from the surrounding trees and if it was blowing a gale this would cause problems with them flapping in the wind (they are parachutes, after all!). But this new design means this problem has been resolved and they are now tight and stationary in the wind, thus enabling us to use the entire workshop area in heavier rain / wind without any problem.
Erecting the tripods and the new, enlarged, tipi was quite a challenge involving tree climbers, pulleys and lots and lots of grunt from the eight of us that were working on it. It was with hearty cheer that the last pole went up, together with a huge sigh of relief on my part. All that remains is to put up some log walls to keep it cosy on cooler days, but we're already working on them and they'll be in place in time for Autumn.
We also have water and electricity in the workshop which, without wanting to damage the 'back to nature' feeling of the space, now makes running courses a good deal more efficient. I'm particularly pleased that this means we can run our slow revolving leather strop for sharpening and honing the tools during a course, and therefore a bit of sharpening tuition can be included for anyone interested in this aspect of green woodworking.
Sadly, we've had to say goodbye to our trusty old tractor but we have replaced it with a quad bike to bring the lunches down to the woods. Perhaps surprisingly, we're finding this has far less impact on the woodland floor and, besides undeniably being a superb 'big boy's toy', it's proving invaluable for almost everything we do now. We have built a track for it over the last remaining boggy bit of the site so that I can deliver Boo's delicious lunches right to the dining area in any weather. With just a bit more practice I should be able to avoid spilling any ... unlike my first attempt, which is probably best forgotten.
Our new al fresco dining area also worked very well for the first course, as did the camp fire area by the new pond - it's proving a good spot for informal chat at the beginning and end of each day. We will, of course, be enjoying an indoor (or, in-tipi) dining room by Autumn.
All in all, I am over the moon with the result, and the fantastic reaction that we get from everybody who has seen it so far seems to be proof that it's not just me. I'm sure there will be lots of fine tuning and new innovations as we settle into our new home, but it is great to know that it's just the fun bit of refining a fully operational workshop left to do now.
So, a big thank you to Mace, Clive, Graham, Adam, John, Lally, Jack, Matt, Finn, Ed and Ian, for all of your long hours and hard graft (often knee deep in mud in the pouring summer rain that we've been having). It has all been well worth it and I can't wait to welcome more guests over the coming weeks, months and years.
By the way, if you're local or just in the area and would like to come and have a look, please do feel free to give me a call and arrange a time to visit.
We don't have any professional photos of the new venue as yet, below we have included a gallery of some of my snaps taken during last week's course. I hope they give a reasonable taste of Higher Holditch Farm, but I'm really looking forward to welcoming you down here to see for yourself before too long - it's brilliant!
That's it for now.
Guy and the team
Tree of the month - Scots Pine - Pinus sylvestris
I decided to take a look at the Scots pine this month after seeing a lot of these lovely trees while visiting the New Forest recently for a family cycling trip. Incidentally, to follow on from last month's piece on the small-leaved lime, we cycled a lot of woodland trails, at one time passing through an area call Linwood Coppice, where it was interesting to confirm that the name remained but no lime trees were in evidence at all.
Scots pines were growing there, however, and looking very lovely, towering over a fresh green understorey of forest floor plants with the sunlight catching on the distinctive heavily textured bark, with its warm reddish hue up in the canopy.
This tree is one of our few native evergreens and the only pine native to Britain. Always a pioneer species, having struggled back into Britain in the wake of the retreating glaciers, it was driven north to the Scottish highlands after the climate warmed up about 5000 years ago, allowing deciduous trees to dominate in the southern reaches of Britain. The climate and poor soil conditions of the highlands suited the Scots pine, where it spread to cover a vast area of land, eventually known as the great Caledonian Forest. The fate of this forest, and of the Scots pine itself, mirrors the fate of the Scottish people who lived in its highland ranges.
Timber from the forest had long been used in Scotland for building houses and ships, boxes, barrels and fencing, but as the Industrial Revolution advanced, English traders began to take huge amounts of timber out of Scotland to satisfy the hungry new markets of industry. First, the pines were felled for charcoal to feed the iron-making industry, then for ship-building during the Napoleonic Wars. The quality of the timber made it irresistible for the industrialised south, and access was relatively easy, as the felled trees could be floated out of the remote forests via rivers and lochs to the sawmills. Ever more new uses were found as industries developed - pit props, telegraph poles, railway sleepers, and additional uses like the manufacture of turpentine, pine resin and tar.
The ecological disaster of uncontrolled felling was exacerbated by the human tragedy of the highland clearances. As the highland communities were removed from the land, huge numbers of sheep and deer which had been bought in by the landowners ate their way through the emerging seedlings and effectively halted the natural regeneration of the great pine woods. As there was no local population left, and no effective woodland management in place, the great Caledonian forest was rapidly reduced to a few inaccessible fragments as the exploitation continued. Amazingly, it was as recently as the1970s that sense finally prevailed, and a conservation programme got underway to preserve the remnants of the forest, and to protect some areas from deer to allow natural regeneration to take place.
People had realised long before the 1970s that the timber resources of the Caledonian Forest would not last forever, but in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the solution was to look for innovation outside of the country. Plant hunting was all the rage, and large numbers of foreign softwood species were collected from as far afield as America and the Far East and tested in nurseries at home for their viability in the English climate. Decorate new ornamental species were very sought-after, but there was also huge demand for new softwood species with commercial potential to address the shortage of timber at home. and it was this drive to collect and research new species for commercial forestry that led to the dark sterile plantations of non-native conifers blighting hillsides across the country.
As the Scots pine in native only to the highlands of Scotland since prehistory, all colonies in the lowlands, and in all areas of England, are deliberate plantings, or self-seeded from an earlier planted tree. This is interesting as in many parts of England and particularly in our old stamping ground of the Welsh borders, the Scots pine is historically recognised as a landmark tree. It has long been said that these trees were used by drovers to indicate a route, or a farm where they would be welcome overnight, or where safe grazing or watering could be found for the flock being bought down the drove roads to market from the remote hills where they had been kept. Places across the country where Scots pines are planted are still identified with names that associate them with droving. What is not known is who planted the trees, or when, but the planting of Scots pines, in groups of three or four, and the meaning of safe haven that goes with them is consistent across the length and breadth of the country.
Carolyn Brightwater
The New Woodland Workshop at Higher Holditch Farm
