Chestnut fencing, particularly Sussex post and rail is a part of the Wealden landscape but the coppice workers that harvest the timber and produce the raw materials tend to work so deep in the woods that their activities are almost hidden. As a name Haslemere is almost a misnomer, it should really be called Chestnutmere, especially on the West Sussex side but that's a bit of a mouthful really (this photo is of chestnut coppice cut earlier this year on Stanley common).
John Woolgar is a Chestnut Coppicer on the steep slopes (hangers) overlooking Fernhurst. John brought his new toy to the furnace, a smart new timber trailer with crane, loaded with fresh chestnut lengths to split into rails and fence posts. Certainly made short work of unloading and the shiny new tractor looks like its got real windows rather than holes in the metalwork like the last one.
Here John is using steel wedges and a sledge to split out the chestnut into posts.
The timber was good and straight and despite copious tea breaks, endless questions from visitors and annoying photographers John soon produced a pile of fence posts.
Here Terry, his assistant, is splitting the longer lengths with wedge and sledge to make up rails for the traditional post and rail fencing.
The rails are dressed with an axe to remove unwanted and stray pieces splitting out. For post and rail the fencer will normally shape the rail ends and mortice the posts on the job.
If you are in the Fernhurst area and want Chestnut posts and rails then you can call John Woolgar on 0777 4149595. Or drop in and see him if you can find him, he tells me he's cutting up behind Shulbrede priory this year. This load was straight off to a job.
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