Updates on the website may have gone a little quiet, but offline we’ve been pretty busy. It feels like a whirlwind of courses and community events, new trainees, new coppice coupes, and some new projects just around the corner.

July and August – the traditional tools-down time – allowed us to focus on meeting demand for our British charcoal. We also ran a couple of lovely events: making a woodland mandala at the Old Station, Tintern (pictured top right), and a meet-the-makers charcoal event at Priory Grove, Monmouth.

New trainees and APF

At the same time, our new trainees Nick and Roxanne nailed their chainsaw qualifications and hit the ground running at the start of September, getting to work in the wonderful woods of Monmouthshire. No sooner had they got to grips with the basics than we whisked them up to the brilliant APF show in Warwickshire – where they got a taste of the whole spectrum of woodland and forest management, from the traditional craftspeople in our section of the show to the heavy duty equipment involved in large-scale logging.

APF was a great gig for us, demonstrating the art of making charcoal from sustainably harvested wood, and getting to hang out with lots of other coppice workers and likeminded souls. Meanwhile, one of our 2023 trainees joined us in the event's talks on getting new blood into woodland management. So that was an interesting interlude before getting back to the busy cutting season…

Courses aplenty

As well as work in the woods, this autumn has so far seen us run introductory courses on charcoal making, woodland management, and managing for hardwood timber. 'Charcoal Making' does what it says on the tin, and our participants went home with their own bags of the black gold (and quite a lot of black smudges on themselves) from this hands-on event (middle picture). 

Our 'Introduction to Woodland Management', on the other hand, involved a lot of theory - accessibly presented, of course! Although there was less opportunity to get down and dirty, we did head out into a range of woodlands to talk about what sort of things you might want to undertake (following all the correct paperwork being in order, of course). 

Participants on ‘Managing your small woods for hardwood timber’ had fun measuring the potential haul of timber from standing trees, and following lots of the usual digressions from our informal short courses. This gave us the opportunity to share some lovely shots and videos of our chainsaw mill (bottom photo, with Wye Coppice trainees Roxanne and Nick). We hope to share  the fruits of our milling labour in due course. If you're in the market for sustainably harvested, local timber with known provenance, drop us a line.

Next up: an introduction to hedgelaying and coppicing in Trellech; Christmas Crafts in the Narth; and having a little festive break before continuing with the busy busy season out in the woods.