Mallinson Ltd - woodwork courses in Dorset. Perfect short breaks for everyone.

With spring in the air, a bit of sun in the sky and the first signs of bluebells appearing amidst the trees, it's hard to believe that only a couple of weeks ago we were snowed in and enjoying the woods in a new-to-us and quite Narnia-like incarnation. School never got a look in as we all had our hearts set on going sledging in Dorset - fantastic fun and a very rare occurrence down this way.

Fun and magical it might have been, but I have to admit I was quite pleased we didn't have any courses running during the heaviest snow. Although everything stood up to the weather well and even the parachute canopies filled with tonnes of compacted snow stayed in place, to be honest I had not seriously considered snow loading when designing the shelters. Still, despite some rather alarming flexing of the giant tripods, everything about the new workshop is absolutely fine and ready for our first 2009 course towards the end of March.

Winter Casualties

We did lose a couple of trees due to the snow - most notably the one that was over the pond, which fell and ended up stuck firmly in the middle. (It has now been removed, thanks to some heroic work on Mace's behalf.) However, as luck would have it, we'd already ordered and have now planted some new oaks and ashes. These replace old and dead trees and form part of our long term management plans for the woods.

Willow Whips

Of course, it is the time of year for planting and so as well as the standards we have also planted some 3,000 willow whips in the boggy bit of field adjacent to the woods. These came from Westonbirt and comprise a mix of five different sorts of willow. The purpose of this planting is not just for the annual crop, which we'll use for baskets, artists' charcoal and children's courses, but also for visual interest and to act as a wind break from the north-easterly winds. Another benefit is that they should help dry out this difficult boggy ground, forming a mat of roots that will also help during harvesting. We do say that our materials are all locally sourced from sustainable woodlands and this is really an extension of this philosophy.

Now, with the planting is pretty much over for the season, we are turning our attention to getting the woods properly ready for our March course. More about these developments next month when I have some pictures to show.

Things To Do In Dorset

We have also taken advantage of the winter to do a little bit of work on the web site. Regular visitors might have noticed that the local accommodation pages have been added to quite substantially, and that there is a new section on local attractions. Here, we've made a start on pulling together a variety of things that we think are good to do around and about, ranging from nurseries and tropical gardens to beach cafes and the River Cottage canteen. I hope this proves helpful for guests who are extending their stay down here before or after a course, and also for other halves who may be looking for things to do while you are making them their next birthday present.

That's it for this month - it's time to go back to the woods and finish a second green wood ladder commission before getting on with building our new timber store area. As always, thanks for reading.

Guy and the team

Tree of the Month: Box - Buxus sempervirens

This month I'm looking at what is our rarest native evergreen, the box tree - Buxus sempervirens. You might be surprised to find out that it is a British native, or even that it is a tree, as opposed to a garden shrub ripe for clipping, but the box was in fact the last native tree to colonise Britain, spreading into the country after the last ice age. Box grows happily in the more temperate climate of mainland Europe, often in association with beech; in Britain its natural range is limited to the southern counties, where it thrives in areas of calcareous soil.

I thought to take a look at this tree after a recent visit to Corfe Castle down here in Dorset; walking alongside the stream on the footpath that leads up the castle, I happened upon a small, scrubby tree with pale bark, small, dark leaves - and a wooden label attached saying simply 'Box Tree', which got me thinking about this retiring little tree. I grew up near Box Hill in Surrey, and never gave much thought to the name at the time; later I found out that Box Hill, offering as it does an ideal habitat on its warm, chalky slopes, is named for, and home to, the largest native colony of box still in existence in Britain.

The box tree can, rarely, reach a height of 35ft but is most commonly seen as a much smaller tree or shrub. When growing in great stands as it does on Box Hill and at a few other choice locations like Chequers in Buckinghamshire, the shade of the dense evergreens results in a bare understorey, as with their companion plants, the beech. In the deep shade beneath the canopy the pale, contorted box limbs appear twisted and ghostly in the dim light.

Box woodlands such as these used to be managed as a valuable commodity; the trees were coppiced, a method of harvest that prolongs the life of the tree and promotes vigorous new growth. This practice of cutting the stems almost at ground level opens up the canopy and allows light to penetrate to the woodland floor, thus stimulating new growth from the stump - called the stool. Although coppicing allows the timber crop to be maintained by hugely prolonging the life of the tree, box grows so slowly that cutting on a coppice rotation can be a once in a lifetime event; box trees seldom make any great girth in Britain, so a stem that it harvested at 10 inches across may have taken 200 years to get to that size.

So, with a twisted habit, and slow growth to no great size, how was boxwood put to use? In fact, this unprepossessing tree is one of our finest native hardwoods. The wood is exceptionally hard and heavy; when green it is too weighty to float on water. The cut timber of a pale yellow colour, is valued for its exceptionally fine grain, the closely packed growth rings a result of the slow growth. This exceptionally slow growth rate meant that the small size of most harvested boxwood limited the uses of the timber to small projects. Products such as bobbins, pestles, chessmen and drawing instruments were commonly made of boxwood where fine work demanded a fine, hard timber.

The most important commercial use of box, however, was for printing blocks in the heyday of wood-block printing. Towards the end of the eighteenth century a fundamental shift took place in the style and technique of wood-engraving, moving from the simple, broadly-worked woodcut, which was made on wood taken from a plank, to the much finer and more detailed wood engraving, which was made on the end-grain of the wood. The precision and detail of the new technique demanded a strong, stable, finely-finished surface, which in turn demanded a timber as hard and perfectly flawless as box could be.

This new technique of wood engraving was largely pioneered by Thomas Bewick of Newcastle, who was trained as a metal engraver, but saw, and realised, the potential of wood engraving to produce exceptionally fine wood blocks for commercial printing. The wood engravings, which were made on blocks produced 'type high' to enable them to be printed alongside the text, were incredibly robust; Bewick himself claimed that one of his blocks was still useable after 900,000 printings.

That there were at one time many larger, mature box trees in Britain is evidenced by the size of the box wood blocks that were produced in the heyday of commercial wood block printing. Once these ancient trees were felled for their timber, work with native box wood was limited in size to the wood available; it is possible to join small blocks to create a larger printing block, but this is expensive and specialised work, as the finest hairline crack between the blocks will show up on printing.

We know that the commercial use of box had made it a valuable commodity since the seventeenth century, as accounts exist that show stands of boxwood, and even the right to cut boxwood over the winter season, changed hands at quite astonishing prices; From accounts dating from 1608 from the manor of Betchworth we can se that 'the rent for Box Trees cut down upon the sheep-walk on the hill was £50'. By 1797 Sir Henry Mildmay, the then owner of West Betchworth Manor, sold for £10,000 the right to cut all of the box of over 20 years' growth each winter up to 1810. This was a truly huge sum, but the deal coincided with increased imports of foreign timber species with similar qualities to box, but of greater size, which destroyed the domestic market. Nowadays, box wood is still used for small, craft wood engraving; commercial use of the tree is limited to the harvesting of shoots for floristry uses.

One strange fact to finish is that box is the main habitat for an extremely rare insect known as the Box hill bug, first discovered, and primarily found on Box Hill in Surrey.

Carolyn Brightwater
Brightwater Greenwood