Cutting Pea Sticks and Bean Poles

Cutting birch coppice is one of the things that needs to be done on the commons during the winter months. For besoms (traditional birch brooms) its important to cut and work up the brash before the buds form so the sooner the better to do the work.

Luckily Saturday was great weather and I was joined by some friends to the work. Although I provided loppers and bowsaws it was good to see that the billhooks were favoured. After a short introduction to the use of traditional billhooks and we got stuck into the birch.


A lot of the birch will be cut with modern power tools or machinery but its good to do some cutting with hand tools and to select the cut stems for traditional garden products.

I think it helps to understand how the landscape was formed and how it was originally managed. We've all been so indoctrinated into going to the garden centre. It can often be a bit of revelation how simple it is to get what you need from the woods and be looking after the environment at the same time.

Most of the birch was a little too young to be good for besoms, but it will make fine pea-sticks and bean poles. The short stems will be selected for pea-sticks, the larger straight stems for bean poles or broom handles.

Learning to look at the wood and see the shape of the stick, or handle, or pole that you want is a simple skill and well worth it. Acquire it and you'll never need to buy an overpriced composite walking stick again.

A traditional pea-stick is upto 6 ft in height with the bottom foot stripped of branches for pushing into the ground. A good shape will be something of a fan rather than a single straight stem. Good straight stems will be poles and broom handles, although you might shapes useful for a variety of purposes, such as coat hooks, walking sticks, clothes line props, fruit cages etc.

Any that doesn't get used for the garden will be bundled as faggots for kindling so little will be wasted.

I'm a bit of a fan and collector, not to say obsessive, on the subject of billhooks so it was great to see 5 of my old hooks being used with such enthusiasm. As well as the Brades, there was an old Morris (recently rehandled by me), a Brades single bevel 10inch, an Elwell 3901 and a Fussells Biped

Andy did so well with the hook that he worked up a bundle of bean-poles for his new allotment.