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

We are still here! Apologies for the delay in getting the June newsletter out - I've been waiting for final confirmation about a TV programme. More on this below.

Aside from that, it's been a fairly hectic month in the woods, both with courses and preparing for our children's camp next week, and let's not forget the parties in the woodland workshop. We've also been busy building bridges and cutting brambles back. This work has opened up a nice circular woodland walk for anyone who fancies exploring a bit further afield from the main workshop areas. There are some pictures showing what we've done at the foot of this page.

On The Telly

The main news of the month has to be that we have been asked to host a new TV programme here later in the summer. This new series will be out early next year and will include the craft skills that we teach on our courses, culminating in participants designing and making a stool or chair. The filming will be taking place this Autumn. I have to confess I've no experience of TV work ... I'm hoping it's going to be fun, but I suspect it'll be a fair amount of hard graft too. I'll let you know.

Fancy Being A Craft Star?

One consequence of this is that you too could be involved ... If you are keen to further develop your craft skills then this may be the opportunity for you. The series will be for a major broadcaster and will feature a variety of traditional skills. These include stonemasonry, weaving, thatching, blacksmithing, stained glass and of course the green wood working that we teach on our courses. The filming will be taking place over six weeks in September and October and you will need to be free for this period of time. The production company who have been commissioned for the series are called Ricochet and if you would like to apply for the programme please contact them directly to find out more. The contact details are: mastercrafts@ricochet.co.uk or call Tony Dillamore direct on 01273 224 800. They are getting lots of interest so do act quickly if you want the opportunity to learn a great new skill!

New Dates

A down-side of this TV development is that we have had to rejig some of our course dates to accommodate the filming. (Everyone already booked on the courses concerned has been contacted.) The website has now been updated with the changes and we've also now published all of next year's dates (earlier than usual), so there's lot of alternative choice if you had your eye on a course later in the year.

As always, do book-up soon. Bookings have been good to date already, and we do anticipate more interest on the back of the TV exposure. That said, do rest easy that it won't change anything about how we do things here!

New Course

As well as sorting out the next year's course dates, we're also introducing a new course. I'm not 100% sure of the name yet, but in essence it's "Make A Chair From A Tree". This will be a five-day course (our second masterclass), starting in Spring 2010. It replaces the old three-day footstool-making course and is very much a development of that, based on guest feedback. It will cover all the skills needed to make your own chair.

I'll design the course in depth with Mace over the coming weeks and I'll publish full details in the Autumn. The first masterclass course (making your own pole lathe and shaving horse) is generating a lot of interest and I hope the chair making will prove as popular.

Come And Camp - It's Legal

The other really good news this month is that after a very drawn out process we have finally been granted full planning permission for some long-term changes we have wanted to introduce for the woodland workshop - not least, allowing camping. Over the years a lot of guests have asked if they can camp during the courses and this was central to our planning application, and now we can legitimately say 'yes'.

With the permission granted, we will now set to work making the facilities a bit more comfortable. Over the coming months we'll be adding a hot shower and improved toilets. Yes! We can now finally get on and build to replace the dreaded chemical loo, which has bothered me for a long time.

Another aspect of this is that we can now create a parking area at the top of our field, meaning that you'll have this option instead of parking at our house. This means there'll be no need for me to tidy up children's skateboards and bikes and no need for you to avoid wayward children, chickens and dogs. We'll also be putting in a new track to enable cars to access the workshop, for guests who are unable to walk down to the woods. All in all, very good news.

Braziers In Stock

Last but not least, the fire pits that we use in the workshop areas have proved popular items in our shop but our supplier has been out of stock for some time. The good news is that we now have 10 of these in stock and ready for delivery. So, if you have had your eye on one of these please let me know soon and I'll put one aside for you.

That's it for this month - back to pizza oven building before moving on to the other plans ... a luxury loo next!

Guy and the team

Tree of the Month - Walnut - Juglans regia

A glance at any hedgerow will confirm that elderflowers are the top pick this month, and I have been busy collecting the frothy white flowers to make cordial, 'champagne' and wine. However, I have written about the elder tree already in this series, so at this point I can only exhort you to get out - quick - and pick the elderflowers to make your choice of drink while they are still about. Luckily, though, in searching through my favourite ancient wine-making book to see what else was good to pick at this time of year, I discovered inspiration for this month's offering in the following recipe, for which the leaves are best picked before mid-July:

Walnut leaf wine

1 gallon walnut leaves
3½ lb sugar
Juice of 2 lemons
Water, to 1 gallon
Yeast & nutrient

Dissolve the sugar in 4-6 pints of boiling water. When the water clears, pour the hot liquid over the walnut leaves. Allow to infuse over night. The next day, strain the liquid into a fermenting vessel, and add the lemon juice, nutrient and yeast, and shake well. Top up to 1 gallon with cold water and leave to ferment in a warm place. Rack off once the wine has cleared, and again two months later.

But first, find your walnut tree ...

The common walnut originated in Asia Minor, and in earliest times spread into Europe, where it established widely. The trees were introduced to Britain by the Romans, whose army carried the nuts with them when they came to this country, and thus established the tree here, at the limit of its northern range. The trees were often planted for the nutritious nuts, but the crop is frequently lost to the frost; walnut trees thrive in the south and south-west of the country, but are not found far north; so for those of you who may be reading this in the icy reaches of the northern Britain, the above recipe also works with oak leaves.

The Romans called the walnut the 'royal nut of Jupiter' - or Jove's nuts - from whence comes the botanical name. They valued the walnut highly; for the nuts and the oil produced from them, and for the many medicinal cures and potions made from all parts of the tree. The common name comes from the German wallnuss meaning strange or foreign nut, and when this strange nut arrived in Britain, it was quickly recognised here as a valuable source of wood, food and medicine.

The walnut is a long lived tree, with specimens dated to over 1,000 years old. In Britain, as in Europe, many of the oldest specimens are to be found in the gardens of monasteries, where monk-apothecaries cultivated them for the nuts, and as the source of many remedies. Nicholas Culpeper, writing in 1654 in his collection of herbal remedies, recommended preparations of walnuts as a remedy for, among other things, sore throats, stomach ache and agues and as a preventative for the plague.

There are so many different uses for all parts of the tree, that it is easy to see why it was historically so highly valued as a source of medicine; to name but a few: preparations of the leaves have been used to treat indigestion, diarrhoea and worms; externally, a tea of the leaves is recommended to treat cold sores, haemorrhoids and varicose veins, as well as for problems of the mouth and throat. The bark of the tree can be prepared as a laxative, and used to clear worms, and the oil contains Omega 3 fatty acids, which are beneficial to the heart, circulation and immune system, and which we are all supposed to eat more of now. The walnut is also an interesting example of the medieval 'doctrine of signatures' school of medicine, whereby as the walnut looks like a brain, preparations of the nut were held to be beneficial for ailments of the brain.

The timber is of high value to furniture-makers, and Mace also pointed out that it is commonly used to make gun stocks. Research proved, in fact that this is generally the wood of the black walnut, Juglans nigra, which is a tough, resilient timber, particularly resistant to damage by the recoil action of the gun. This timber was imported to England from America by furniture makers following the particularly harsh winter of 1709, which wiped out much of the European walnut trees, and led to an export ban on the remaining timber until stocks recovered.

The usefulness of the tree is reflected in the fact that it is deeply embedded in the folk traditions of many European cultures; for the early pagans, nuts represented life and fertility, and walnuts in particular were dedicated to the gods, especially Jupiter and Artemis which also associated walnuts with wisdom and old age. At the other end of the spectrum, they were used in the making of love potions, and being associated with love, marriage and childbirth. A gift of walnuts was commonly given as a wedding gift at Greek and Roman weddings. As time moved on, walnuts came to be used at Christian weddings as a sort of early confetti, thrown at the bride and groom. Hopefully there were not too many black eyes as a result of over-enthusiastic wedding guests!

Happy picking,

Carolyn Brightwater
Brightwater Greenwood
www.brightwater.org.uk