All our courses are project based and designed to be fun, relaxing and informative. They are suitable for men and women, experienced woodworkers and complete novices alike. Our regular courses have a minimum age of eighteen, and there are never more than 10 guests on a course. We also offer courses designed to cater for adults and accompanying children, and on these we are able to take children aged 10 and up.

In the woodland by Higher Holditch Farm we've created a clearing that's dedicated to the teaching of 'green woodworking'. This “woodland workshop” has been designed to be cool and shaded in summer, and cosy and warm in winter.

All courses are led by me, Guy Mallinson, personally, with the assistance of other skilled craftsman and specialists in their field, including Mace Brightwater, Karen Hansen, Veronica Hudson, Malcolm Seal and James Verner.

You will have the use of a set of very high quality tools and we provide all the materials needed to complete the projects. Our materials are personally and locally sourced from sustainable, managed woodland. For the courses that include lunches we provide delicious fresh meals cooked by my wife, Boo, and these are locally sourced as well, along with tea and coffee and biscuits and cake.

Green Woodworking

Green woodworking means both green as in 'unseasoned wood' and green as in environmentally preferable to the alternatives.
A well-managed woodland is a perfect sustainable resource.

Green woodworking offers the opportunity to see the whole process from start to finish - from log to end product. Being unseasoned, it is soft and easy to work with hand tools. Working this way offers a unique insight into the properties of wood.

The hand craft techniques and the types of wooden equipment we teach and use are both ancient, as well as being dust free and quiet. Green wood is also affordable and readily available. The scale of the timber that is extracted for the good management of a woodland is too small for economical conversion into planks. The timber that we use would be otherwise destined for the log pile and has little or no commercial value apart from being cut into firewood. However, the species of tree that we use are the beautiful hardwoods that any other cabinetmaker would routinely use in fine furniture.

As you will learn, when using green wood, the logs are cleft (split along the grain) rather than sawn and so we are working much more with the nature of the wood. As a result of this cleaving process, the grain runs along the length of the piece whereas a sawn piece of wood will usually have the grain running diagonally across it. This 'cross grain' is a weak point, so this means that pieces made using green woodworking techniques are stronger than their mass produced counterparts.

What's more, because the wood is worked to shape before it dries, there isn't the tension build-up found in the drying of large sawn boards of dry timber. For this reason green woodwork has less tendency to split and crack as it is drying and you'll discover how to use the drying process to your advantage.

You'll find green woodworking processes relatively straightforward: the basic techniques can be picked up very quickly by everyone - even those with little or no experience, including children. Apart from anything else, this means that everyone - including complete beginners - goes away from one of our courses with a finished product to be proud of. Having said that, experienced cabinetmakers can also gain a great deal of satisfaction and insight from learning about this specialist area of woodworking.