Suitable for: Beginners, Improvers

Considerations: Outdoors based, physically demanding (please contact us with any access needs you have, and we will be happy to advise/accommodate as best we can)

What to wear: Sturdy shoes, outdoor/wet weather gear, clothes that you can get messy 

What to bring: Notebook and pen for taking notes, any helpful tools you may have (tools will be provided)

Refreshments: Tea, coffee and biscuits will be available throughout the day. We also have a fantastic on-site cafe, Embers, run by local chef 'Shropshire Lad'. 

Spend a day turning freshly cut coppice wood into useful and saleable products.

We’ll start with the basics – hedging stakes, beanpoles, weaving rods & pea-sticks – before moving on to splitting and weaving with hazel, and investigating different and perhaps entirely new coppice creations!

We will cover:

- How to use your body to measure out poles and rods in the woods.

- How to effectively extract, point & bundle coppice products.

- Splitting and weaving with hazel to create hurdles and baskets.

- Investigating other coppice woods and products  (sycamore, ash, chestnut).

- Using traditional green woodwork devices to cleave and shape green coppice wood.

Book a place on Introduction to Coppicing and the total cost for both courses will be £160!

Tutor: Tom Dillon 

Tom first discovered his passion for green woodwork during a 2010 course at the Centre for Alternative Technology, where tutor Bob Shaw sparked a lasting connection to the woods and traditional craft—setting him on a path to make the woodland his life and livelihood. 

Over the next few years, he continued living in woodland settings around Herefordshire, honing skills in green woodwork, coppicing, roundwood building, and small-scale woodland management alongside experienced craftspeople. Since 2014, Tom has been teaching green woodwork and coppicing through organisations including Ruskin Mill Trust, Small Woods, and Black Mountains College. 

"In 2011, I was lucky enough to spend 6 months with Mike Abbott as the main assistant on his chair-making courses, which totally changed the trajectory of my life. It was a whole new world to me. I lived off-grid in a caravan, learned about fire for heating and cooking and drying/bending chair-parts, and fell in love with trees, craft and nature, and a simpler, slower, truer way of life.
 
There is nothing quite like cutting, splitting and shaping green wood. Every bit of tree is different, and needs to be listened to and worked with, rather than on. I think humans in our time really need to learn that simple lesson - how to be and work with nature again. 

I love spending most of my days outdoors, moving with the seasons, and trying to find that 'flow state' where magic happens and beautiful new things appear in the world. 

It is always a pleasure and an honour to welcome folk into the woods and witness them slow down and recalibrate through the simple act of carving a spoon or making their own stool or chair.” 
  
Tom has an MA in 'Special Education - Practical Skills Transformative Learning' from Lillehammer University (2019), is a Forest Schools Practitioner (2010), a Member of 'Association of Pole-Lathe Turners & Green Woodworkers', 'Landworkers' Alliance', and 'Scythe Association of Great Britain & Ireland', and proud Co-owner of Clissett Wood.