Guy Mallinson Woodland Workshop

May 2011 Update

2011-05-11T20:52:00.000+01:00

And the bad news is ...

I am very sorry indeed to have to reportthat I’ve been diagnosed with a condition called ‘Cluster Headache’. This causes aninfuriatingly debilitating pain and after struggling with it since the start ofthe year, I’m now under doctor’s orders to not teach any courses or, indeed, doany work at all.

On the plus side, I am told I can expect tomake a full recovery – it’s just that no-one can say exactly when.

Until we’re clearer about when we can startrunning courses again we’ve stopped taking bookings, but I do hope I’ll be in aposition to put some flesh on the bones regarding our future plans in thenot-too-distant future. I’ll keep youposted in the normal way!

I did say ‘nearly’ everything’s on hold.One aspect of life down in the woods that is able to continue is our ‘CraftyCamping’. Adam has been working hard ongetting what were already very good camping facilities even better and,frankly, if they’re not already luxurious then they will be very shortly. It’s camping, but it’s a long way fromroughing it! There are more details on the site here and I hope you’ll be able to take advantageof what’s on offer over the coming weeks and months. The woodland is beautiful andquiet. Combined with first class camping, it’s a lovely place to spend a coupleof days.

While I’m recovering, The WoodlandWorkshop is carrying on. We’re not shutting up shop! Adam’s working in thewoods full time, Helen is looking after all things office and admin, and Mikeis keeping on top of everything online for me.

As for the future – as soon as I’m betterwe’ll be back and, as ever, recipients of this newsletter will be among thevery first to know about all new developments – including reinstated coursedates for bowl and spoon carving, pole lathing, and making chairs, gates, totempoles and coracles.

I’m sure the future’s bright, I’m just notin a position to say quite when it starts!

I am very sorry for any disappointment andhassle all this has caused. Thanks for reading, and thanks for your patience.

Guy

Hide Covered Coracles - The New Prototype

2011-02-03T15:00:00.001Z

There are many styles of coracle attributed to various geographical locations and the rivers they are used on. The design I've been working on with Adam is very much based on the version I studied with Peter Faulkener last year, when Peter was so generously passing on his skills and knowledge.

Other variations, for instance, use ash laths instead of the woven coppiced willow and hazel we're using, and most makers for the last century have been using a calico and bitumescent paint 'skin', rather than the hide we're favouring.

The calico version is a perfectly valid alternative and is obviously much easier to achieve. It also has the advantage of being lighter to carry when you're sneaking down to the river with your salmon net under the cover of darkness!

I have to say though that, given the choice of end product, I am happier using the hide that has been drying on its stretcher for the last few weeks, It may take a bit more time and effort but the end result has a timeless quality that harks back to ancient times and craftsmen. It is exactly these ancient skills that are so valuable for us to understand, document and preserve for future generations, so that they aren't lost for ever - as so many crafts have or are being.

The willow we use is from the withie beds that we planted at the Woodland Workshop just two years ago. Frankly, it is staggering how quickly the willow grows, producing a crop suitable for coracles every year. The hazel comes from an eight-year rotation coppice on The Forde Abbey estate next door. The harvesting of the coppice is a seasonal activity when the leaves have fallen; a very satisfying winter job. We both have a lot more to cut yet for this year's season - the perfect way to spend a crisp February day.

Bending the hazel frame needs to be done with great care (if they snap they can be replaced but this is a tricky and frustrating process). It involves pulling the hazel with one hand to tension the bend as the other hand teases it to shape. Many weavers would weigh the bent hazel down for a period of days or even weeks to achieve the all-important flat bottom. However, Peter Faulkener developed and taught me a very clever way of pulling the central run down with a Spanish lanyard prior to tying all of the marine twine knots. This in effect locks the lattice to shape and when the lanyards are unwound the whole structure stays the same shape - absolutely brilliant!

Once the structure is complete it is just a matter of going around with some sharp secatuers to snip off any sharp ends that may puncture the hide, and then a quick going-over with oil on the frame and oak seat completes the process.

The limed hide is then soaked to make it supple again and positioned over the frame, leaving a small gap at the back to drain any water out after use. It is then cut to shape around the gunwale and laced in place using more wet leather strips. Due to the shape it looks alarmingly baggy at this stage despite our best efforts to pull it tight. However, just a few days drying out and it's as tight as a drum with no more wrinkles to be seen.

The oak bark tannery that's supplying us (the only one in England) is just up the road, and I'm off to get some more hide next week. We need to be ready to demonstrate this stretching and drying when we're in the Green Field at Glastonbury Festival this year and - of course - we need hides for our coracle making courses this season too. While I'm at the tanner I'll also be picking up some dubbin to seal and protect the outside.

And after all that work on the coracle, there's the question of the paddle. This is made from ash and requires our regular traditional green woodworking techniques with the drawknife and spokeshave on the shaving horse - an oar is just a very big spatula after all!

Chair-Making In The Snow

2010-12-08T10:41:00.002Z

The November/December chair making course was the last of our 2010 season. It will be remembered as one of the most eventful of all. Heavy and lasting snow in Dorset is a rare thing at any time, let alone in November, so I can only take my hat off to our seven hardy chair-makers for not giving up, battling against all the odds to get here and then going on to make seven beautiful chairs - on time and without a word of complaint.

I don't mind admitting we were really tested for the whole week, one way or another. The emergency calls from some of the guests needing collection from various places in the lanes between the main road and the Woodland Workshop set the tone! Both Adam and I have Land Rovers so we were easily able to rescue guests from wherever their cars had become stuck, a pattern that continued throughout the week, both collecting and dropping off at various lay-bys and pubs.

Once here we were met with frozen pipes throughout the Woodland Workshop, but by day three we had the defrosting down to a fine art and this routine just became part of the daily fire lighting and tool sharpening preparation. That said, it was nice to make use of the Kelly Kettles again, heating our tea water at the beginning of the week.

Those readers that have been following our experimentation with boiling elm logs to remove the bark for the seating will know that we now have this cracked, so we can include bark stripping in winter when the sap is down. If only ... With eight logs draw-knifed and scored ready for boiling, you can probably understand our disappointment - and mild panic - when, come Tuesday, we discovered that however hot the boiling tank was, dropping a frozen log into it soon cooled it down and rendered it ineffective.

Yes, this did constitute a disaster, and there's no more stock of elm bark in the country, anywhere, even if it could have been delivered.

Time for 'Seating Plan B' - use leather strips instead. It is pure good luck that the only oak bark leather tannery is just a few miles away and after a few frantic phone calls Adam was ready to brave the blocked lanes to go and collect enough leather sides and a very specialist saddle-maker's strip cutter to do the job. It was all a bit too 'seat of the pants' for my taste but the end results were absolutely stunning. Indeed, so much so that we are now seriously considering using leather strips instead of bark on all future chair courses.

The trials and tribulations didn't stop there. Our heroic caterers, the Nettle Pickers, made it for the first three days but were snowed-in for the last two. Time for 'Food Plan B' and back to the old days with my wife, Boo, preparing meals up at the farm and then transporting lunches down to the heated tipi on the back of the quad bike. That sounds like a good Plan B and in summer it would have been fine. In the snow though, the track down to the woods had become something akin to the Cresta Run in St Moritz. We had some very hairy moments balancing roast chickens whilst side-slipping down the chute on the quad. By luck and luck alone, all went well and lunches were enjoyed in the toasty-hot, log-burner-heated tipi on the last two days. Again, just a bit too close for comfort.

No, it doesn't stop there. There were the lithium battery drills that we discovered won't hold any charge when frozen, but this turned out to be quite easily solved with half an hour in the heated drying cabinet. There was also the small matter of cleaving - the wood was so brittle that cleaving was unpredictable to say the least; yet another steep learning curve for everyone.

But, for all of that, it was a magical week. The woods looked stunning and the atmosphere the whole time was really special. It was certainly a break with a difference for our guests. Seven beautiful chairs were produced on time and I shall never forget the sight of everyone walking back through the floodlit woods in the snow and dark. An hour after the course finished it started to rain and in no time all the snow had disappeared. It could have been a dream.

Oscar The Owl

2010-11-12T10:06:00.000Z

If you receive our newsletter you'll know that Adam (one of the team) has been working on a 3D version of Oscar The Owl. I'm delighted to say he's now finished.

We're very fond of Oscar, designed by our friends at Big Fish Design and there's been an 'Oscar totem' half-carved for months, sitting patiently waiting to be finished during the totem courses. However, these have been so busy that he wasn't really progressing and so it came down to Adam to finish Oscar off.

Well, as you can see from the photos, Adam's done a fantastic job and Oscar is now greeting our guests and keeping a wise eye on the goings-on in the workshop.

Congratulations Adam on a fantastic piece of carving, and thanks too to Karen Hansen for tutoring Adam on this part of his training as a full time green woodwork tutor.

Barking!

2010-11-09T11:08:00.005Z

Although there are many options for the seating on the green wood chairs made on our popular 'Make A Chair From A Tree' courses, elm bark is easily my favourite. Working with it feels like you are weaving with leather and looks fantastic, as well as being relatively hard wearing. Best of all, it is made from a part of a tree that is often discarded - something I find deeply satisfying.

In view of the difficulty in buying any more elm bark from our usual suppliers (we and other chair making friends have used the entire stock from the UK for this season) it seemed timely to try and make our own - something that we have been wanting to do for ages but never quite managed to get around to.

Smaller elm trees are surprisingly easy to source locally as they are not attacked by the Dutch elm disease carrying beetle when small, thus giving us the perfect excuse to fell and use them before they inevitably get the disease when larger. The problem is that the best time to peel the inner bark is when the sap is rising in the spring and we can't wait that long!

So, having taken the outer bark off with the drawknife we tried soaking for three days to see if that would help. It didn't. Then steam was tried using a steam box for a day. It still didn't peel easily. Obviously something more drastic was required so we then tried boiling for a day, something we know works well with willow.

We made a trough and built a big fire below, then patiently waited and watched. The result? Success! It may not be as easy as peeling bark in the spring (we'll compare processes in a few months) but it does mean that we can continue to make fresh bark throughout the coming winter courses and beyond - a great relief and, I think, a great additional aspect to our chair making courses.

Snow White In The Woods

2010-09-29T17:24:00.001+01:00

In between running green woodworking courses here in the Woodland Workshop, we've held various events and also used it for some TV work and photo shoots.

Our friends at Hiho Silver have just finished compiling their Autumn 'catapaper' (a cross between a catalogue and a newspaper, with photos taken in the woods. The sight of Snow White and her dwarves, as well as Prince Charming and the rest of the cast, is one that shall stay with me for some time. I think it is obvious from the pictures that everyone had a good time, myself included ...

You can view the Catapaper here and the Hiho Silver web site here - both well worth a look as their silverware is something special.

The spirit of the true bodger

2010-08-09T15:56:00.000+01:00

If you've kept up to date with our latest newsletter you'll probably have noticed the fantastic detailed drawings for a shaving horse that Martin Nicholson has shared with us. I think it's really gratifying when someone who's been on a course is then inspired to take it further when they get home and, personally, I'm very impressed by the drawings. I'm also absolutely delighted that Martin himself has pretty well ignored them!

To explain, Martin's been helping to run a Scout camp in the New Forest, and during that he built a shaving horse on the first day entirely from materials scavenged from the site's wood pile. He used hot nails to make holes and came up with an alternative hinge design using some cord he found in the hedge. If that's not the spirit of the true bodger then I don't know what is! Wonderful stuff.

More Chair Making Successes

2010-07-20T12:58:00.001+01:00

Last week saw the second full 'Make A Chair From A Tree' five-day course and I think I can say for sure that a great time was had by all. And, in contrast to the last time we ran this one, we finished all 10 of the chairs just a couple of hours after 5.00 on Friday, a big improvement! It was all quite (nicely) emotional at the end, with some justifiably proud guests.

Of the 10 guests we had six campers who had to endure some pretty torrential rain storms but in the true spirit of camping they still managed to enjoy themselves (with most of them ending up in the tipi for shelter I think). It must be said the Woodland Workshop's hot shower was put through its paces after the storms subsided.

I must say spending a week making a chair from a tree seems to be a particularly wonderful way to spend time ... and if it appeals then don't forget the new course dates we've added for this year - there are still some places.

New Course Dates

2010-07-15T17:50:00.000+01:00

Of course we all dislike difficult decisions, but I've really struggled with this one. The bottom line is that there just aren't enough days in the year.

To be specific, the 'problem' is that we've experienced good - and growing - demand for pretty well all of our green woodworking oriented courses. (A nice problem to have!) However, this meant that for many people we just didn't have the course dates available to suit holiday arrangements etc, or in some cases there just weren't any dates left at all in 2010.

On the other hand, we've had considerably less demand for the non-woodwork-focused courses that we've introduced ... and as much as I am keen on broadening the overall scope of the Woodland Workshop, they were taking up a lot of the space in the diary.

So, and only after a lot of deliberation, I have decided to place the focus on green woodworking, cancel the other courses that were filling-up the diary, and thus offer more woodwork-related dates.

What that means is that I'm now able to offer these new course dates for 2010:

Pole Lathe And Green Woodworking
Sep 13th/14th
Nov 1st/2nd

Carving A Wooden Bowl
Sep 27th/28th
Nov 4th/5th

Make a Chair From A Tree
Sep 20th-24th

As always, places are strictly limited so do book soon if any of these new dates tickle your fancy and suit your diary.

Of course, everyone booked on the cancelled courses has been contacted and refunded, and I do apologise for the disappointments. All I can say is that it was not a decision made lightly.

Phew. As always, it feels much better once a decision's been made!

See you in the woods soon.

Guy.

A Coracle In the Woods

2010-07-07T10:32:00.000+01:00

I made my hide-covered coracle towards the end of June, guided by Peter Faulkner. However, for the best results the skin needs to dry before you take to the water. And so, about a fortnight later, the time came for my own coracle's maiden voyage, here on the lake in the woods.

I will admit to some nerves - it's one thing to do this with an expert coaching you, quite another to do it all alone - but it was absolutely fine. They're not the easiest of craft to get in or out of but I did it without falling it, and the satisfaction of paddling a boat you've made yourself ... well, I strongly recommend you come and try it. Brilliant!

Recent Courses

2010-07-07T10:30:00.001+01:00

We have been enjoying the glorious weather in the Woodland Workshop with a series of full courses running back to back, including a very enjoyable bowl carving course in the summer sunshine.

I do advise guests to keep the still-green bowls out of direct sunlight, but the temptation was too much for them when it came to the group photo ...

The Pole Lathe course also went really well, with an incredibly productive group making lots of dibber, spurtles, spatulas and candle sticks as well as some rather good lemon squeezers and rolling pins. Happy days, and lots of people coming back for more - which is always very gratifying to hear.

Coracles In Herefordshire

2010-07-07T10:27:00.001+01:00

At the end of June I spent an absolutely magical time with Peter Faulkner in Herefordshire. Peter is the only hide-covered coracle maker working in Britain today.

I've long been an admirer of Peter's work and I had hoped he would come to teach coracle making here in the Woodland Workshop. Unfortunately, I then discovered that he's just about to retire - which is nice for him, but rather scuppers my plan!

As you can probably imagine, I was therefore absolutely delighted when Peter very kindly suggested that he train me in this very ancient craft of making the greenest of vessels.

The process of building a coracle is relatively straight-forward - if carried out under the watchful eye of an expert - and by the time we'd finished weaving the willow and hazel and tied all of the joints we had an incredibly stiff lattice structure.

Working with a hide skin was a totally new experience for me and wonderfully direct, and with a bit of practice I got the hang of the lashing and ending up feeling inordinately proud of the end result. This is something that I see in our guests on a regular basis, and for once it was really nice to be on the receiving end of the satisfaction of learning something new and fulfilling.

As well as learning to make coracles, Peter also showed me the 'figure of eight' rowing technique and we tried this out for real on his local river - the perfect end to a experience I shall never forget and one that I'm looking forward to passing on to future coracle makers on our courses.

Peter's web site has some more details about his amazing achievements with coracles and currachs - boats that should never be underestimated!

Dorset Art Weeks

2010-06-18T17:40:00.004+01:00

It has been great fun to be open to the public over the last two weeks as part of Dorset Art Weeks. We had many more visitors than expected and our pizzas (from our home made clay oven) and cider went down extremely well - more than 400 pizzas and five barrels of cider were consumed over the fortnight. Good food and drink in a woodland setting - perfect. This blog by fellow furniture maker Simon Pirie helps give some of the flavour of the overall Dorset Art Weeks event.

Tom from Mastercrafts came and helped me which made it all the more enjoyable, and he's also been brushing up on his pole lathe turning and chair making in preparation to coming to help run courses here next month and again later in the year. Charlie also made a star appearance but sadly I missed the opportunity to get a photo of his (ahem) lovely colourful shirt.
DAW

My wife Boo's painting exhibition also went down very well and she almost sold out of paintings by the end. When you come down on a course, I recommend a visit to her studio up at the farm where you can have first choice of what she has been doing. (There's a link to her web site on the left!)

Mastercrafts Series 2 - Axed!

2010-06-11T15:56:00.002+01:00

I have to say I was disappointed by the BBC's decision to not commission a second series of Mastercrafts. I say that not because I was a mentor on Series 1 but because I really do believe in craftsmanship, and Series 1 was a big step forward in showing to the public at large the pleasures to be had in all the crafts featured - not just green woodworking.

There is a Facebook Group set up specifically about this development

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=133737523309730&ref=ts

and if you, like me, feel passionate about craftsmanship then perhaps you'll make your views known.

You can also read more about the issue (no Facebook participation required!), here:

http://ukhandmade.co.uk/magazine/petition

at UK Handmade.

Masterclass 2 - Chairs From Trees

2010-06-03T23:22:00.002+01:00

Our 'Make A Chair From A Tree' course has been very popular since our trainees on the BBC Mastercrafts program undertook the challange of making a chair from a tree in just 5 days.

Last week saw the first time of teaching it to a full house of 10 guests and I am delighted to report that at the end of it there were 10 beautiful chairs and 10 happy and rightfully proud chair makers.

We did have to work on into the evening to keep on schedule which, although not ideal, was great for the group as a whole and everybody rose to the challange. Having said that, I am currently revising some details and processes so that on future courses everybody goes home on time!

We had four campers all week and the new woodland shower has proven a real hit - not to mention the evening sessions in the dining tent with guitars, singing and campfires etc - a real escape from everyday life for all concerned. I'd like to say well done to everyone and a heartfelt thanks too for the wonderful letters - they mean a great deal to us.

For one guest, Aaron Hewit (recently back from a tour in Afghanistan), this was the last of four consecutive courses with us. He made a fantastic chair as his finale, as this picture shows:

Aaron's lovely basset hound and camper van will be much missed as will Aaron himself. I do hope he'll be back in the not too distant future for another few days in the woods.

Tom Vaughan from Mastercrafts is here in the workshop now, working with me on refining this course and he'll be teaching on it when it's next run - which is next month. Personally I can't wait: the feeling of achievement really does seem to have affected everyone quite fundamentally.

Inaugural Masterclass

2010-05-26T16:21:00.002+01:00

I had high hopes for our 'Masterclass' idea but you never really know until you try it. I'm pleased to say the first one, "Make A Pole Lathe & Shaving Horse", went really well. And at the end of it everyone went home with their own pole lathe and horse - including one set just fitting in to a Micra! (It was a bit of a squeeze.) I don't think I'd realised quite how many shavings we'd all create in a week!

We knew it would be a lot of work for just a week and it was, but we all had a great time and it was a real bonus for me to be able to spend such a long time with the same group. Lots of new friendships emerged and some enthusiastic campers amongst the guests were immersed in the woodland experience for the whole week. Heaven!

The next one of these courses is filling up quickly so if you have yearning to own your own lathe and horse and fancy a unique five day holiday too, do book up soon. The course includes all materials including the solid oak pre-made lathe bed, poppets and stainless steel metalwork etc.

Making Gates

2010-05-26T15:57:00.001+01:00

I'm pleased to say our first "Make A Chestnut Garden Gate" course went really well, with a full set of individual gates being designed and made in just two days. That's some going! Guy Furner is a natural teacher and between us we helped our guests create some really fantastic and beautiful gates for their gardens. It is always fascinating with all of the courses to see how varied the end products are and this was no exception.

The gates should last for years. They are held together with dried chestnut pegs and utilise the natural curves of the coppiced Chestnut that was harvested specifically for this course.

Please Note: there are only a few places left on the course later this year, but we will be releasing one extra date for 2011 in the May edition of our monthly newsletter, so if you have a need for a special gate or fancy learning some new skills now would be a good time to book your place.

Primitive Pottery

2010-05-26T15:49:00.006+01:00

Adam Hendley proved to be a natural teacher with his gentle style on our first primitive pottery course last week. It was a girls-only affair which was unusual but fun for all. I think everybody enjoyed digging our own clay from the stream in the Woodland Workshop and getting down and dirty!

Processing our own clay was a real eye opener to me and the wonder of watching our creations glowing red hot in our open fire pits was both an anxious and exciting moment. There were all sorts of pots and effigies and beads etc made, many of which were decorated with imprints of leaves and petals. I made time at the end to make a 3d version of Oscar the Owl as a model for a really large one that Karen Hansen and I will be carving over Dorset Art Weeks.

The feedback from all of the guests on this course has been fantastic and it was great to see so many campers .. but where did all that left over home made cake go? I have seen a few crumbs in the Tipi.....it must be all that "hyperthermalating" after the cider!

The Cloud Factory blog (see right) has a more information about 'primitive pottery' if you'd like to learn more.

The Nettle Pickers

2010-05-26T12:09:00.007+01:00

There's a new team preparing food in the woods: Vicky, Joy and Anna (collectively known as 'The Nettle Pickers') have taken over the new dining tent and are producing fantastic lunches for all courses and events. All of our guests this year have enjoyed watching meals being cooked in the woods throughout the mornings, before each day's lunch extravaganza. The ingredients are all local and fresh and include lots of seasonal foraged elements too. When possible organic is preferred and mixed with spices from around the world.

The Nettle Pickers are part of our local farming and smallholding community and are perfectly placed to find the best of what's on offer at any time of year - with the result that guests (and the team) are getting really delicious, imaginative healthy food every day.

It's a duck's life

2010-05-26T11:45:00.002+01:00

Mastercrafts trainees Tom, Charlie and Sarah's namesake ducks have settled in well on the pond and their duckhouse (that you can just see in the background in the second photo) is growing a fine lawn too. As you can see, the eggs look lovely (thanks girls!) and taste great - superb creamy scambled egg. We're also crossing our fingers for some ducklings before long ... I'll keep you posted.

Photos From The First Week's Courses

2010-04-28T23:32:00.004+01:00

I thought I'd add a few photos (taken by guests) from the first week's courses. I particularly like the bodger's shelter (top right), and I couldn't resist showing off our first camper!

First Course Of The Year

2010-04-22T12:36:00.003+01:00

We've just held our first course of the year - and I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed them! Lovely weather, great guests ... you couldn't ask for more.

One guest, David Reid, has very kindly put together a YouTube slideshow of photos from the course which is viewable via this link. As you'll see, not only was this the first course of the year but it's the first time we've had guests camping as well, and hence the first time the new showers were used 'properly' as it were too. Throw in a bit of axe-throwing and I can't think of a better way to spend a couple of days!

Three Days Of (Totally Exhausting) Fun

2010-04-13T18:00:00.001+01:00

Last week saw three 'trial courses' - days when we test out new courses to see if there's anything we haven't thought of.

So, back-to-back, I was taking part in -

Children's Basic Bushcraft. For me at least the 'making fire' bit of the day was the best, I loved it! Something wonderfully elemental about making fire from nothing. Mind you, all the other skills were very involving and engaging too. It was good to see how absorbed the children were with it all.

Children's Wild Child Adventures ... and this was indeed a bit more wild! The day included trapping, stalking in two teams and hunting each other (with soft-tip arrows and goggles I should add!). It was a lot of fun for everyone.

Children's Away With The Fairies, which I have to say was lovely. The kids - boys and girls - just loved it and it was a real pleasure to see them having so much fun. The parents were having a pretty fine time of it too!

I can promise you, doing three one-day courses, all involving children, is a sure way to end up totally exhaused. Where do they get all that energy from ... ?

More details are on the site as normal:

Bushcraft
Wild Child
Away With The Fairies

There aren't many of these courses in the calendar this year so if you're keen, book early. Just click here.

Coracle Making This November!

2010-03-26T16:30:00.002Z

As newsletter readers will already know, I've just been able to confirm that we'll be running a coracle making course in November this year.

The course is still under development and the coracle shown on the web site is one that we made while at our previous base in Mangerton. This will be the model/prototype for the course design but obviously it's subject to change. However, we do anticipate a lot of interest in coracle making, so if you are keen to try your hand do book early for the first course proper, which we'll be running on the 10th-12th November. The price is £480.00 + VAT (£564.00) per person and - as always - this includes materials and delicious lunches, tea and coffee, biscuits and cake.

(PS: to get the news about new courses and dates first, sign up to the newsletter.)

Away With The Fairies!

2010-03-22T17:43:00.000Z

I'm pleased to announce another new course, which will be led by my friend Mo Hammick (a.k.a. 'Fairy Mo'). It's a new children's day called 'Away With The Fairies'.

As it sounds, this is all about imagination and play in the woods. It may not have a lot to do with traditional crafts but from the trials we have been running it is simply great to see the joy on the children's faces as they build fairy and elf houses from found woodland materials. I must stress that this is not just for girls! My boys - or elves as they were then - have all enjoyed making imaginary houses in our garden for years and I am sure this is going to be a very popular day. We are starting with two dates: Saturday 19th June and Saturday 18th September. It's for children aged 5+ and an accompanying adult of any age.

Sorry to disappoint, but I can assure everyone that I'll not be dressing up for this course despite the apparent enthusiasm for the idea in some quarters!

Revised Links

2010-03-18T22:23:00.001Z

I've been looking at all the links on the web site and have had a bit of a re-organisation - to hopefully make them make more sense and be a bit more useful / easy to use.

First of all there's the Local Accommodation page which does what it says on the tin - as it always has done. If you're coming down for a course and need somewhere to stay, there's a whole range of different places here, and with a good variety of prices too. It's been updated with some new entries.

There's now a Things To Do In The Area page which has new (not just reordered) links too, including some of my favourite places to eat. The restaurants I've chosen are very much places that you need to book-up in advance. What I have in mind is someone coming down for a course, having a great few days with us and looking to top the holiday/mini-break with a meal to remember one evening as well.

And finally there's the bit-of-a-catch-all Other Relevant Links page which, well, has other links that I hope you'll find relevant / interesting / useful!

Little Blog Awards

2010-03-18T18:08:00.001Z

We're entered into the Dorset Cereals 'Little Blog Awards' - and I must say for a newcomer to the blogging game this is all quite exciting! To vote for us, simply click on the link below.

Thank you!

Showering In The Woods

2010-03-18T15:54:00.006Z

The new camping pitches in the woodland workshop are all level and seeded and once everything has grown back will be ready to go.

The (luxury!) loos have been in action for some time now, which just leaves the shower to finish off before guests start camping this year.

The sculptural willow walls that we made for our old woodland workshop at Mangerton House attracted many positive comments, and it was with this in mind that I decided to make a woven willow shower here at Higher Holditch Farm. We started by heading off to Malcolm Seal's to harvest some of his pollarded willow (I hope that ours will look like this in a few years time) and enjoyed a beautiful spring day cutting the pollards and some poles for the structure. I hope that the pictures speak for themselves.

We have now finished the main structure (although we do need to address quite how see through it still is) and the next stage is to fit the shower itself and some reclaimed flagstone floor, as well as an oak floor in the undercover section. I can't wait to have my first hot shower in the woods, looking up at the trees and hopefully in the rain!

In time the poles should take root (like the main workshop poles) and create a lovely leafy open shower for all our staying guests to enjoy. There's ample room for two in there but I probably shouldn't encourage that!

New Team Members

2010-03-18T15:40:00.001Z

I've suddenly realised that I've not mentioned the new members of the team that have come onboard in recent weeks. Mo Hammick (alias Fairy Mo), Ben Orford, Adam Hendley and Guy Furner all now have profiles on the team page on the site, and I'm looking forward to working with them in the coming months.

My Portfolio - Updated At Last!

2010-03-08T17:46:00.001Z

Just a quick entry to say I've finally found the time to update the portfolio page on my web site. As before most of it looks back to my cabinetmaker days in London, but there are now two entries at the top - a Hay Loft Ladder and my Wishbone Stool - which better reflect the work I'm doing since I moved to Dorset.

Mastercrafts Winner at Forde Abbey

2010-03-01T17:57:00.001Z

Tom came back to the Woodland Workshop on the 26th Feb, to deliver his fantastic and now fully finished rocking chair to Forde Abbey. What a triumph! It looks really stunning.

Tom, of course, is showing the signs of a true craftsman and immediately pointed out a few minor imperfections that irritate him still - a great sign that he really has bought into the idea of it having to be perfect. Frankly, with the relatively little training he and the others received, and the huge time pressure of the final task during the show, it's a miracle that it was finished at all. Working with no sleep and a camera over your shoulder is not all that conducive to the level of focus and perfection that I know Tom is easily capable of either.

It already seems like a long time ago that Mike Abbott awarded Tom the accolade of winner of 'our' episode of Mastercrafts and it was with great pride that we were shown into the Great Hall of Forde Abbey where Tom's chair will be placed on a pedestal for all to see. I would like to thank Alice and Julian Kennard of Forde Abbey for offering to display Tom's chair for this coming season, for their 50,000+visitors to admire. I strongly recommend a visit too!

It would have been nice if Sarah and Charles' chairs could have been shown alongside Tom's - they all show the maker's characters very effectively and that's a very important facet of the hand-crafting process. Charles' incredibly beautiful and well-made chair should get the recognition it deserves as a true masterpiece - albeit finished too late to be effectively judged! And in addition Sarah is going from strength to strength with her chair-making and her beautiful chair is featuring all over the place - in magazines, on TV and in radio discussions too. And that is all good news for spreading the word about craftsmanship and woodworking in general.

New Courses

2010-02-22T16:05:00.004Z

I'm not quite sure how we've managed this, but in amidst all the Mastercrafts-related activity we've somehow found the time to launch four brand-new courses for 2010, two for adults and two for children.

Primitive Pottery
Basic Bushcraft
'Wild Child' Adventures
Children's Bushcraft

I'm really excited about these, they're something quite different from the range we currently offer but they're absolutely right for our Woodland Workshop. They are all led by Adam Henley, the newest member of the team here, with me assisting. I have to say I do enjoy being in the assistant's role sometimes - it's great to be able to learn as well as teach!

You can read more about Adam on the 'Guy And The Team' page on the site here, and full details about the four courses are now on the site too - just follow the links below.

Primitive Pottery

Basic Bushcraft

'Wild Child' Adventures

Children's Bushcraft

New Course Dates

2010-02-22T15:54:00.000Z

As regular readers of our newsletter know, I'm often saying 'book now before it's too late'. Well, I'm saying it again now ... At the time of writing two courses are completely full and several only have one or two places left. It really does feel like it's 'going, going ... gone!' time.

Places on courses are always strictly limited and rest assured this will continue to be the case, so it really is true that once it's full, it's full. The last thing I want to do is lose the 'feel' of our courses - nice, small groups relaxing in a lovely woodland setting and having fun.

As a result of the interest, we've been adding six new dates to existing courses and these are now all on the web site here.

However, even with these additions, if you fancy coming down this year I'd urge you to book up soon.

Mastercrafts - The Aftermath!

2010-02-15T16:35:00.002Z

Well, it's finally gone out! It seemed to me like a long week, waiting for the first in the series of Mastercrafts with Monty Don to air on Friday on BBC2. I hadn't seen the final cut and so had butterflies the size of large bats come 9.00! Thankfully, the editors were kind to us and I think they did a fantastic job of distilling six weeks' worth of footage into something that was both informative and representative of some of the goings-on in the Woodland Workshop.

For those that missed the green woodworking episode it can be seen on iPlayer.

Of course a lot had to be edited out but that was inevitable and the feedback that we've had has been very encouraging and positive. I am told that 2.7 million people tuned in to watch it, which sounds like a very large number to me. Phew ..!

It is somewhat ironic for somebody who tries to encourage people to slow down, relax and enjoy being creative to find myself doing very long hours in the office over the weekend responding to kind comments and taking bookings for this year's courses. However, I'm not complaining really.

Going by the last 48 hours it is likely that we are going to need to announce some additional dates for the courses that are rapidly filling-up. The April Pole Lathe course has just one more place so if you have your heart set on April now would be a good time to book! We always inform our newsletter subscribers first about any new dates or deals, so if you would like to keep one step ahead of the crowd do please sign up for this (along with Twitter and Facebook if they're your your thing too).

- sign up here.

I am a fan of Monty Don anyway, but I was very pleased with the way he presented the Woodland Workshop and particularly with his very genuine passion for the subject of woodworking, craftsmanship and particularly green woodworking. Monty carves bowls using the same techniques both he and I learned from Paul Caton many years ago, and bowl carving is our most popular course by a long way.

My only slight personal disappointment was that bowl carving was not shown in the final cut as Tom, Charlie and Sarah all made beautiful bowls as part of their training. However, I do understand that there's no way everything we did and learned could possibly have been included.

I'm looking forward to watching this week's episode on thatching - same time and place - and this week I'll have a much better chance of being able to relax and enjoy it.

There have been lots of fantastic responses to the show - here are a few newspaper reviews and an item that I wrote for the British Crafts blog.

The Independent

The Mail

The Guardian

British Crafts (blog)

Parachute Shelter Making

2010-02-06T23:25:00.006Z

The winter Woodland Workshop development work continues with a new parachute shelter for cleaving and splitting on rainy day courses.

This is probably the MK10 design of our shelters and, as ever, each time we put one up we learn a bit more and simplify. I can't take all of the credit on this one though - the design is based on an idea by Jasper (my eldest son) to hang the parachutes from a central 'mast' and to tension it with a large metal ring (or two as it turned out).

I'm pleased to say it's been a great success: it stays dry and taught in the rain and just gently sways in the wind (despite being held down at three opposing points).

The whole structure took just one day to erect with Adam's invaluable help, together with a quad bike and pulleys to do the hoisting. If I'm honest I can't really call this one work - just adult den building I guess!

Winter Woodland Workshop Work

2010-01-30T22:21:00.004Z

This winter we've been building a larger dining shelter for the coming year's courses, which involved Adam doing some fairly heroic tree climbing to get some of the support structure installed. The photos show why I was very happy to leave that one to the experts.

And, as if this were not enough high level work, as soon as he was safely down on the ground he was then climbing the tipi to help install the new flue. This has made a huge difference and we now have a lovely hot tipi wood burner with no smoke, all ready for winter dining when it is just too cold to eat in the outside dining shelter. Luxury!

Mastercrafts - The Book

2010-01-29T15:47:00.001Z

As you might expect, there's also a new book being published to accompany the 'Mastercrafts' series, which will be launched on 12th February as well.

One of the book's six chapters is devoted to wood and our woodland workshop and if you would like to pre-order it, it can be bought directly here (and at a £5.00 discount too!):

Mastercrafts Book - Buy Now

BBC Mastercrafts with Monty Don

2010-01-29T15:42:00.002Z

The new TV series 'Mastercrafts', which includes an episode filmed in the Woodland Workshop, hits the screens on the 12th February ... and that's awfully soon! The programme is presented by Monty Don and is being shown on BBC2.

It seems like just yesterday that the film crew and trainees featured in the series were here, but since then the production company (Ricochet Productions) and the BBC have been busy getting everything edited and ready for viewing. What's more, according to the BBC, "Wood" (our episode), will be the 1st in the series to be aired - at 21.00 on Friday 12th Feb on BBC2.

We don't want to spoil the surprise so we're keeping tight-lipped about the goings on in the woods but you can see an interview with Monty Don on the BBC website here:

Monty Don Interview (video)

and you can read about it here:

Monty Don Discusses Mastercrafts