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

The new woodland workshop and surrounding woods all look better than ever, with everything growing at an amazing rate including the living willow support poles I mentioned last month. Unfortunately, the growth extends to algae in the pond. As I write it's now clear, and hopefully the barley straw extract I've added will keep it that way. So far it's been a very busy month, with three fully booked courses running back to back.

As ever, if you have a date in mind do book up early as all the dates are filling up now, for later in the year too.

And The Winner Is

In common with just about everyone else these days, I don't know where the last year's gone but it has … and that means our annual photo competition has come around again. So, over the last couple of days we've been looking at all the entries that have come in and there's a good variety and many very good shots. Thank you to everyone who participated.

Of course, I've made a rod for my own back by not setting any particular criteria, but I eventually decided that my favourite shot was sent in by Richard Garrett, who came on a Children's Green Woodworking course with his son Josh. Other than being a good shot for the website I particularly liked the blooded 'priest' (fresh off the pole lathe of course) that the children used to dispatch one of the first trout to be fished out of the pond earlier in the year.

This means Richard has won this year's free course of his choice - and it also means the new competition is now running! Please keep your entries coming in. As ever, everyone is in with a chance as it purely comes down to the picture that takes my fancy!

Summer Camps For Children

With summer now seeming like it might be a reality this year, we have a few new events lined up for children in addition to our regular parent and child courses.

We have linked up with a London based specialist children's party organising company to run some camping and bushcraft summer camps. The idea is that the event starts in London and with entertainment on a minibus they arrive here for two nights of den building and all sorts of activities of an outdoor nature.

My next job is to rebuild the pizza oven in time for the first camp. There'll be more details about all this soon, but if anybody is interested please contact the company, 'Sharky and George' directly on 02073 734 008 or visit their website. They are managing the bookings at their end for their events here, but I shall be here and involved in the entertainment!

In The Woods …

The new summer camps are a good example of what seems to be a steadily increasing interest in Higher Holditch as a venue. If you have an idea for an activity that would be great done in the woods (…), do get in touch. The woods and woodland workshop area are suitable for all sorts of things - from company 'away days' and team-building courses to private parties and wedding receptions, and pretty well all the stops in between. It doesn't have to involve woodwork at all!

Quick Easels

In between courses I have been making good use of the hazel we recently coppiced, to make 10 new easels for our charcoal drawing courses. This is a very direct and simple design using green hazel rods and circular tennons - all very fast with the whole lot made in just over a day and ready for some serious use the day after. They've worked a treat, proving to be light enough for guests to be able to wander around the woods with them, drawing whatever they fancy.

This very rustic way of making things is a long way from my cabinetmaking days but there is something very satisfying about the sheer speed at which things can be made in round hazel. No, it's not the longest lasting or most refined form of craftsmanship I have ever undertaken - but that's not the point.

That's about it for this month. Let's hope that this weather stays for a good long period - the colour in the woods is looking fantastic.

Guy and the team

Tree of the Month - Black poplar - Populus nigra var. betulifolia

Every year on the last Sunday in May the tiny Shropshire village of Aston-on-Clun celebrates Arbor Day. During the celebrations, a black poplar tree at the centre of the village is decorated with fresh flags after the tattered remnants of last years' flags are taken down. This annual ceremony, a fascinating mixture of social, pagan and historical elements that have accrued over many centuries, is a rare remnant of the once-common tree-dressing ceremonies that were carried out all over the country. This ceremony is centred around one of the rarest of our native trees, the black poplar; for this tree, deeply embedded in the social, historic and artistic history of this country, was nearly lost but for the efforts of a few devoted individuals, and the mobilised forces of Daily Telegraph readers who joined a campaign to track down and catalogue all the existing black poplar trees.

The mature black poplar is a mighty tree of gnarled and weathered appearance, growing up to 30m tall in its natural, unpollarded state. The dark, greyish bark becomes burred and fissured with age; the braches sweep dramatically down to the ground, and aged trees often start to lean, giving an even more idiosyncratic appearance. The growth habit and habitat leads to the black poplar being easily misidentified as a willow, hence the common name 'willow poplar', for the black poplar is a tree of wetlands.

Whereas most tree species produce male and female flowers on the same tree, the black poplar is dioecious, meaning there are male and female trees. The green female catkins and deep crimson male catkins are produced in March on the separate trees; the fluffy seeds, which are formed only on female trees, and are released in June. These cotton-like seeds are produced in such inconveniently large quantities that black poplars were overwhelmingly grown from cuttings taken only from male trees wherever they were planted. This policy led to a huge imbalance in the native population, which was already compromised by a habitat decimated by changes in land use, for the native population of black poplar has been hit by a number of human interventions since the earliest days of land management in this country.

The population, which thrived in the wet woodlands of prehistoric Britain, first had its habitat reduced to riversides and wet pastures as the wet wildwoods were cleared for cultivation. A second, more serious blow was struck by the widespread draining of the land during agricultural improvement programmes of the seventeenth century. This limited the number of suitable sites still further, and led on to the grave imbalance in the population caused by the mass-planting of male trees: although the black poplar is a hardy tree, and is able to grow in a range of habitats to the extent that hybrid black poplars are frequently planted to screen roads and factories in heavily-polluted areas, for the tree to be able to reproduce by seed, very specific conditions are required. Firstly, as the tree is dioecious, there must be a male and female in fairly close proximity, but as already mentioned, female trees are thin on the ground. Secondly, once fertilised, the seed requires specific conditions to germinate; it must fall onto earth that is damp and bare in June when the seed is shed, and remains so into autumn. These requirements having rarely been fulfilled in the last couple of centuries due to the continuing programme of land-drainage and 'improvement', it is unsurprising that the native population of black poplar fell into a serious decline, with few new seed-grown trees growing on to replace the aging veteran trees.

The bold, billowing outline of the black poplar was once a common sight in the British countryside, and can still be enjoyed in the background of several landscapes painted by John Constable, including 'The Hay Wain'. The tree was commonly planted near farms and villages, where the timber was used for many different purposes; during building, the timber, light yet strong, was used for scaffolding, while the curving lower branches, ideally shaped for the beams in cruck framed buildings, were incredibly strong if kept dry. The strength of the wood were also valued by arrow makers - arrows made of black poplar were amongst the findings on Henry VIII's warship, the 'Mary Rose'. Being naturally fireproof, black poplar was the timber of choice for flooring in oast-houses as well as in homes, and was especially valued when lighting was still by lamp and candle. Ironically it was later discovered that the wood was perfect for making matches, as it absorbed paraffin wax, and was not prone to splitting when the match was struck. More recently, the strength and flexibility of the timber has been utilised in making artificial limbs.

Interestingly, Mace is familiar with the black poplar from his work as a tree surgeon in Shropshire, and he reminds me that, despite the strength of the timber, the tree is known as being dangerously unpredictable for climbing arborists, due to the risk of branches suddenly breaking.

Back to Aston-on-Clun, and the famous Arbor Tree. Sadly, the original veteran tree fell in a storm in 1995. Luckily, cuttings had been taken some years previously, and a new sapling grown from the original Arbor tree now stands in the village centre. The current Arbor Day probably stemmed from ancient fertility rites dedicated to the pagan goddess Brigit, practised by the Bronze- and Iron Age tribes who lived in the area. The ceremonies would originally have been intended to ensure the fertility of both the land and the people; in a pleasing link to the current-day celebration, cuttings from the tree may have been given to young brides to ensure fertility.

The next reference to the tree links to the restoration of the monarchy. In 1664 Charles II declared May 29th as Oak Apple Day, dedicated to tree dressing, feasting and jollity. Ostensibly a reference to the King escaping capture by hiding in an oak tree at Boscobel Hall, Oak Apple Day was also a vehicle for the re-establishment of previously-suppressed pagan fertility rites associated with spring. A further layer was added when the young squire married on Arbor Day in 1786, and was charmed enough by the celebrations to set up a trust to pay for the upkeep of both tree and flags. The present-day ceremony, which involves a marriage procession enacted by local children, refers to this, and possibly to the much more ancient pagan traditions as a sanitised version of earlier and earthier rites.

Carolyn Brightwater
Brightwater Greenwood
www.brightwater.org.uk