Welcome

to

My World....

Here is a little tour of the woods, where I run my courses and where my workshop can be found. As I continue to shape my workplace and get the infrastructure put together, new structures will appear and evolve, so to keep navigation simple I have seperated this tour into three parts and provided an interactive map!

Simply click on the feature you would like to see more of!

This is where the group courses are held

This is where I make the tools you see and where I run one-to-one and one-to-two courses

A tour of the woods including the facilities and a look at how I'm managing the area.

Main Workshop

Greenwood Workshop

Iron Age Forges

'Limpet' Fireside and Dry Store

Campfire Area

Logstore

Archery Range

Compost Toilet

camping area

Field Archery Course A

Field Archery Course B

The woodland is a 10.45 acre deciduous plantation on the heart of Devon, about 3 miles from the edge of Dartmoor National Park. The site is nestled in the middle of pastural farmland, but is only a mile from the A30 making it very easy to get to by road. Access to the woods is through a neighbouring field and parking is courtesy of the farmer next door, so any visits have to be by prior arrangement. The lack of direct access does mean that I don't have any problem with trespassers or trucks and powerlines running through the area!

The woods have been managed on and off for over 150 years, so there is a good range of useful materials waiting for me to harvest. Sadly it has been fairly neglected over recent decades and I am faced with a long road of heavy maintanence. There are hazel stools that haven't been coppiced in maybe 50 years and areas of birch that have got to the end of their natural life, so are falling over and getting caught up in their neighbours. The hedges are all in a dier state and most need filling in before they can be layed properly, when done though they will look fantastic atop the banks surrounding the woods.

Fruit Garden

Mushroom Forest

Water Source

Workshops                                     The Facilities                                     Other Features

Spring-fed drainage ditch

The diversity flora and fauna has been somewhat diminished due to the overstocking and neglect of the woodland, but as I begin to bring it back into productivity I should see a return of biodiversity. I'm planning on replanting and later laying the hedges that surround and run through the woods, a job that will be ongoing for a number of years. First of all let me show you what is there already...

At present there are two densly packed but well defined areas of birch plantation. One of these areas (where the logstore pictured is situated) has mature trees of around 50 years old. Many of these trees have been caught by the wind and are tangeld in their neighbours. There is a small amount of cherry and oak in this block, which are of a similar age and will make nice standards as the birch gradually falls away leaving an understory of hazel coppice to re-establish. Some of the hazel in this area has poles that are over 6" in diameter, giving an indication of when it was last cut! The second area of birch was planteed about 15 years ago and was never thinned out. Here the trees are tall and very skinny, but there are some good young oaks, hawthorns and ash mixed in. There is no hazel in this area, but there are stools of willow.

The area between the two paths is a mixture of mature standards of oak, beech, ash and cherry and a good deal of newer plantings. The younger trees are the same mix as the mature, but with the addition of some field maple (though I've only found one so far!) and, once again, lots of birch!

The part of the woods where people can camp is made up of mature oak trees with an understory of hazel coppice, some mature ash, beech amd holly are also to be found. Much of the oak is English Oak, but there is also a lot of Turkey Oak in the same area. Turkey oak grows straighter than English oak, but it is of little value as timber due to it's tendancy to rot more quickly and it's relative lack of strength. The hazel in this area looks to have been last coppiced at about the same time as the younger birch planting took place.

The most easterly area of the woods is mostly willow stools that have not been cut in over thirty years, like the birch, these are starting to break off and fall over. The willow thins out and more hazel is seen to the south, while the north has some birch (again, 30-50years) and ash mixed in. The only conifers in the woodland are found at either end of this same are, but there are probably only a dozen trees in total.

The hedges, or rather the remains of hedges, are atop a bank and ditch sequence all the way through the woods. The hedges are generally made up of hazel with oak, beech and holly mixed in. The banks are covered with moss, some grasses and ferns, but very little in the way of the normal bankside plants such as yarrow, woodsorrel, cowparsley, etc.

The woodland floor is carpeted with ivy, ferns, dog's mercury, brambles and some sparse grasses along the paths. There are very few flowering plants that I have seen. I've seen a few wild flowers this year (more than in the past, due in part to my effort to clear the rides and open up the woodland), but I was most pleased to find a couple of bluebells!. As a fan of wild food I am very sadened by the lack of normally common woodland plants, such as wood sorrel, comfrey, yarrow, etc. I don't even have very many stinging nettles!

In terms of the fauna in the woods, again not a great deal that I see. There are lots of squirrles, of course, and Roe deer pass through regularly. Foxes and a badger have been seen passing through the hedges, but I only ever see their prints and other signs. Pheasants, pidgeons, woodpeckers and a range of other birds are finding homes in the woods. When I first cleared the area for my workshop, I was suprised by how many more birds I heard after the light was able to hit the ground compared to when the trees dominated. Tawny owls roost in the woods and can be heard most evenings. Hares are often seen in the surrounding fields and sometimes come into the fringes of the woods for shelter.

Otherwise all I can say about the smaller critters is that the rats and mice will eat anything! I've seen lots of slugs, spiders, woodlice and other creepy crawlies, as you would expect, but no reptiles. The only amphibian I have seen was a lost toad near a field drain.

This is the Limpet. It is where I store things when I need to use it regularly (such as the days between courses). More importantly, it is a place for us to sit around a fire and enjoy a beverage without the weather being an issue. It is a bender/roundhouse hybrid made from woven hazel and covered with tarps. The outside picture was taken during the recent storms and has been strapped down to prevent the tarps flying away (again!).

As you can see, it is centrally heated!

Not far from the limpet are two of the most important areas for camp life.

Above is the campfire area. When the weather is fine this is a great place to sit and cook an evening meal. As well as the trivet over the fire there is a pit oven to the side and a growing selection of seats and paraffin lights. 

Left, you can see the Thunderbox, my compost toilet. This toilet is based on the 'tree-bog' idea and should never need emptying (the idea being that the trees and soon to be planted willow around it, soak up the nutrients as the waste breaks down). The only smell that you will associate with this loo is the sawdust that you put down it after use.

I don't have a source of pure water on site, but I do have a small spring-fed stream in the southwestern corner of the woods. I have regularly drunk this water and survived, but I tend to only use it for filling my slack tubs around the forge. So all drinking water is currently brought in with me from home

I am looking into water purifiers , but I expect to draw most cooking/drinking/washing water from containers connected to guttering around the workshop roofs.

One benefit to come from the neglect off these woods is the wealth of ready firewood! So I am setting up log stores like this around the place and filling them with whatever has toppled over in the vicinity.

This particular store has birch logs in it. The stacks of twiggy bits and thinner sticks on either side are going to form some of the kindling next winter.

When I got my hands on the woods I was looking forward to getting back into one of my favourite hobbies: field archery. Unfortunately I just don't get the time to play, so I had to start running courses that would give me the excuse to find time!

I have a large practice butt with a backstop net at the end of my shooting range. This allows me to practice on the flat at up to 60yds but soon I will increase that to 90yds.

I also have a 36 target field archery course layed out in two halves (courses A and B). the targets are all 2D cut-outs or animal faces. One day I would like to get some 3Ds out ther too.

Flora and Fauna

So what do I plan to do with the trees in the wood? As I mentioned earlier, this woodland has always been a productive plantation. I don't intend to clear fell trees for timber or wood pulp, but I would like to increase the woods amentity and biodiversity value. This will involve re-establishing a coppice rotation for the hazel/willow/oak and laying the hedges.

The hedges are gradually being filled in with hazel and beech saplings, so with luck I will be starting to lay in a year or two. Not only are layed hedge better looking, but they are more effective at keeping animals in or out and they open the banks up to the sky, allowing a wider variety of plants to emerge.

The mature birch is gradually thinning itself, so I shall let nature take it's course there and cut up the majority of the fallen timber for firewood, carving projects, charcoal, etc. Some of the dead wood will be left in place and allowed to rot, being and important habitat for a wide range of species.

The young birch will be thinned to allow for more vigorous growth of other species. The area now covered in young birch was previously an area of open ground, presumably this is where wood was processed and stored when the woods were still being worked.  The aerial photograph shows the woods sometime before the last of the new trees were planted! I would like to create some wooded glades, where the sun can get to the ground all year round and grass can grow. Hopefully this clearing will encourage seeds that have been laying dormant to emerge after a long slumber.

The area of willow, birch and hazel to the east will gradually be coppiced, but until the hedges become well established it is forming a good screen. In the meantime I shall cut some of the more deformed and dangerous trees.

On a more localised scale I have already planted some native fruit trees. I've deliberatley only planted varieties that have been in this country for at least 2000 years. So we have medlar, crab apple, gooseberry, blackcurrent, raspberry, wild service (Chequers) and cherry. I hope to add a qunice tree, some juniper, billberry and anything I can find in the future. I have also set up a mushroom forest, with 6 different varieties ranging from oyster mushrooms to chicken of the woods. Hopefully the first crop of mushrooms will be ready in the autumn of 2008.

In May 2008 I had a digger in to level my workshop floor and while he was there I put him to use digging this pond for me. At present it isn't lined and so it fills when we have rain (it collects a great deal of hill wash from the nearby fields), but the water soon drains away leaving a series of small pools. At it's fullest is reaches about 15x25 feet and 3 feet deep, at it's dryest it forms several pools no more than 3x5 feet and 1 foot deep. I plan to line the basin so that I can create a range of habitats including a proper pond and several boggy regions. This I hope will help increase the biodiversity of the woodland and encourage frogs and newts with luck.

Pond

Updated!!