Surrey & Sussex Coppice Group Hands On Day, July 4th 2009, Fernhurst, West Sussex
Sometimes my posts remind me of London buses. Yes that's right no posts for a week and then two or three come along together. This time it's because I've been busy getting ready for the coppice group activities at the weekend. For this year's Surrey & Sussex Coppice Group Hand's On Day we descended on a field near Fernhurst in West Sussex adjacent to Furnace woods and the old medieval iron works. Many thanks to Robin and Carla Barnes for hosting the day (although due to circumstance they missed the event). The show field is surrounded by the old woods of the furnace on the wealden clay, a new plantation of oak woods and looked down upon by the acres of chestnut coppice which is still worked on the nearby greensand slopes from Hollycombe , Lynchmere and Stanley to the West, Marley to the North around to Blackdown to the East.
Preparations mainly involved testing Will's bench seat (at least for Mr Sinclair they did), stoking the fire and contemplating the evil looking bladder of home made cider. One of my brews but a mix of apples from a local orchard, mainly cox, bramley and russet provided by John last Autumn, and quickly nicknamed the colostomy sack.
The hog roast crew were first to arrive, Dave Rossney and George with the pig for the evening roast (and yet more Cider, this time a fortified 5 year old with a vicious kick hidden behind a silky smooth taste from the oak sherry casks it matured in). John and Will swiftly volunteered for the precision operation of impaling the beast, clearly a missed vocation. At the same time the kidneys were removed and devilled for breakfast.
The lineup of Landrovers old and new was impressive, with Graham's, Mick Stanton's and mine in a row on this side of the field, but this picture is actually supposed to be showing Rose (who was working with Alan Waters) just starting a rose arch made with cleft and bent hazel rods.
This picture, minus the landrovers, might make a little more sense of the construction with Alan's rose arch just as he's started it.
Steve Homewood of Homewood & Sons put on a 'have a go' demonstration of chestnut cleaving for paling fences. Steve's family firm has been providing chestnut fences for generations and is regarded as a local institution in Haslemere. Several of the local chestnut workers who work the coppices overlooking the field showed us how it should be done, here Dougie and Winkie Northway, Sid and Justin race to show they haven't lost the knack.
It is largely down to people like Steve Homewood that the chestnut coppice industry survives in this corner of West Sussex and provides local employment as well as high quality, long lasting local fence products and at no carbon cost. He puts the case here more concisely than I would but I am entirely in tune with his thinking.
John 'the Parrot man' Sinclair shows how to use the stock-knife to make cleft ash tent pegs.
Alex helped onlookers to understand cleaving gads with a hazel hook to make thatching spars
And similarly Peter Jameson of the Hampshire coppice craftsmen group and Dorset coppice group finishes off a spar with the classic three sided point, very nearly in 3 strokes of the hook, and all in the space of a short anecdote.
Time for the action (sorry I meant to type auction but my fingers performed a freudian fumble) and Alan leads the charge to divest himself of unwanted tools, closely followed by Paul Vodden (Dorset) and Peter Jameson carrying a post-vice.
Despite the paucity of items the auction was a great success and well attended with Peter Jamieson ever the entertaining auctioneer. This year's quip 'Come on Gentlemen, you need to buy something to prove you were here and didn't spend the weekend with the mistress' will take some beating. No photos of the bidding action, as Peter coopted me as a porter, mainly I think, to watch me struggle to lift the post-vice.
Still to come, in the next exciting episode, Robert and the chocolate cake, noisy machines and proof that I didn't touch a polelathe all day.
1 comment:
December is a month of partying and gift buying. Only three searches peaked in this month, but all three are worth mentioning. Two of them - furnace filters and furnace humidifiers - we will return to in February. For now, just remember these two plurals.
staten island Ac contractors
Post a Comment