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Due to Covid-19, we have reduced personnel at the offices of the Sylva Foundation and our premises at the Sylva Wood Centre. Emails and phone messages are being checked but please allow a little longer than usual to receive a response. Please do not arrange a formal visit without first checking with us. Members of the public are free to enjoy our network of permitted paths through the Future Forest as usual.
Learn and practise how to split hazel and make hurdles with coppice worker and craftsman Simon Farndon during this two-day course at the Sylva Wood Centre.
Simon Fardon, hurdle-maker, demonstrating
Teaching hurdle making
Students will be taught hazel splitting and how to make hurdles on the Saturday and then will practise making hurdles on the Sunday.
Hazel hurdles are a very popular and attractive alternative to garden panels or garden screens and wind breaks. Split (cleft) and round hazel rods are woven around hazel uprights (zales). There are slight variations on design between different regions, but students will learn to make the most robust hurdles using good quality graded split hazel, which is twisted around end posts to produce a very strong and robust hurdle.
The hurdles that students make will be used in the Anglo-Saxon reconstruction of the House of Wessex, to be built over the summer of 2019. If they wish, students on this course will be welcome to volunteer to help with this by making more hurdles later in the year, or by helping fix hurdels to the wall annd roof structure of the building.
By taking part, students will not only help in this exciting volunteer project, but leave with the requisite skills to make their own hurdles at home.
During this two-day course with award-winning boat builder Colin Henwood, you will learn how to shape a single canoe paddle from Ash using hand tools.
“I can’t think of anything that could have improved a perfect couple of days – I will signing up for another one soon.” Student on Paddle making course, January 2018.
Colin was fantastic; his attention to detail and support ensured we all left with a paddle I think even he was happy with! Student on Paddle making course, January 2018.
Make your own canoe paddle at the Wood Centre
Working with ash – our superior native hardwood.
Using traditional skills and tools you will produce a complex shape with hand and eye.
Learn how to finish your smooth and elegant design.
Take home a unique and usable canoe paddle ready for a varnish or an oil finish.
Tools and materials included (if you wish to bring your own tools please discuss this with the tutor).
Cost: £225 per person (materials included)
Venue: Our new purpose-built Education Barn at the Sylva Wood Centre, Oxfordshire, OX14 4QT
Colin Henwood founded his boatyard, Henwood and Dean Boatbuilders, in 1982 specialising in restoring and building wooden Thames launches. The boatyard received many awards in the UK and abroad, and in 2014 Colin was awarded Maker of the Year by the Heritage Crafts Association. In October 2016 Colin handed the boatyard over to two of his team who are successfully continuing the tradition he began 35 years ago. Not one to retire, Colin has established a workshop at the Sylva Wood Centre where he is currently re-building a 1920 Thames motor canoe.
Colin Henwood with students making a canoe paddle at the Sylva Wood Centre
During this two-day course with award-winning boat builder Colin Henwood, you will learn how to shape a single canoe paddle from Ash using hand tools.
“I can’t think of anything that could have improved a perfect couple of days – I will signing up for another one soon.” Student on Paddle making course, January 2018.
Colin was fantastic; his attention to detail and support ensured we all left with a paddle I think even he was happy with! Student on Paddle making course, January 2018.
Make your own canoe paddle at the Wood Centre
Working with ash – our superior native hardwood.
Using traditional skills and tools you will produce a complex shape with hand and eye.
Learn how to finish your smooth and elegant design.
Take home a unique and usable canoe paddle ready for a varnish or an oil finish.
Tools and materials included (if you wish to bring your own tools please discuss this with the tutor).
Cost: £225 per person (materials included)
Venue: Our new purpose-built Education Barn at the Sylva Wood Centre, Oxfordshire, OX14 4QT
Colin Henwood founded his boatyard, Henwood and Dean Boatbuilders, in 1982 specialising in restoring and building wooden Thames launches. The boatyard received many awards in the UK and abroad, and in 2014 Colin was awarded Maker of the Year by the Heritage Crafts Association. In October 2016 Colin handed the boatyard over to two of his team who are successfully continuing the tradition he began 35 years ago. Not one to retire, Colin has established a workshop at the Sylva Wood Centre where he is currently re-building a 1920 Thames motor canoe.
Colin Henwood with students making a canoe paddle at the Sylva Wood Centre
Led by Damian Goodburn BA PhD, a leading archaeological woodwork specialist, this workshop will be held in our new purpose-built Education Barn at the Sylva Wood Centre.
Learn about Anglo-Saxon building woodwork, based mainly on the study of surviving wooden remains, including a review of relatively new evidence, with live demonstrations of tools and techniques, and opportunities to watch treewrighting in action.
Morning activities will include illustrated talks covering the themes below, starting with evidence for how woodland resources were managed. Samples of books and publications will be discussed, including many rare items.
The variation in woodland materials from ‘wildwood’ to intensive coppiced woodland.
An overview of the range of waterlogged building woodwork remains found in Saxon and Saxo-Norman period England c.500-1180 AD when ‘carpentry’ and formal ‘timber-framing’ arrived from France.
Evidence for basic techniques carried out without saws, including felling, bucking, radial, tangential cleaving, hewing various shaped timbers, styles of wattlework.
Evidence for the range of joints and fastenings used, taps and locks, tusk tenons, laft joints, tongue and groove, scarfs, treenails and rove nails.
Tool marks and tool kits, narrow axes, broad axes, ‘groping irons’.
Evidence for ‘built-in’ furniture and fittings such as beds, benches, hearths, storage bins, and coops, doors and windows.
Relevant ethnographic evidence from later timber buildings in the ‘Homelands’ areas on the east side of the North Sea, less influenced by French-style timber-framed carpentry, and how that can be used to extend archaeological evidence from England.
Afternoon activity will involve handling real samples of Saxon woodwork, and high-quality replica tools and fastenings.
Throughout the day demonstrations will be used to illustrate some basic techniques essential to treewrighting, including cleaving a small straight green log (oak or ash c. 150-200mm diam by 1.8-2m long) using wooden wedges, hewing with a narrow-bladed and broad-bladed ‘T’ axe, simple Saxon joint cutting, and willow treenail (wythenails) making.
While the course is underway, delegates will be able to to witness a range of related treewrighting activities nearby, thanks to members of the Carpenters’ Fellowship working on the frame of the House of Wessex.
As part of the exciting House of Wessex project we are running three consecutive one-day treewrighting courses with tutors from the Carpenters’ Fellowship. Places are available for one, two, or three days. During the courses, samples will be made of the key building components for a major historical reconstruction taking place in 2019.
House of Wessex timber frame
Learning will include a selection of the following:
Timber conversion – cleaving and hewing timbers into shape for posts and plates (no saws were used in this period)
Foundations – earthfast anchoring of the posts
Axe carpentry – The shaping of stubby tusk tenons and through-mortises, grooving boards, fashioning halvings and lap joints
Fixings – Shaping the characteristic Saxon “treenails”, a peg with an enlarged head, often wedged internally
Walls and roof – creating wattle panels and hurdles, for the walls and the roof underthatch respectively
Full training will be provided (no prior experience necessary). Although you will be working undercover, the course will be ‘outdoors’, so you will need to wear appropriate clothing. Drinks and food will be provided. Overnight camping (bring your own tent) is available on the site. More details will follow your booking.
You may book for one or more days, up to a maximum of all three days. Please book separately for each day that you want to attend.
As part of the exciting House of Wessex project we are running three consecutive one-day treewrighting courses with tutors from the Carpenters’ Fellowship. Places are available for one, two, or three days. During the courses, samples will be made of the key building components for a major historical reconstruction taking place in 2019.
House of Wessex timber frame
Learning will include a selection of the following:
Timber conversion – cleaving and hewing timbers into shape for posts and plates (no saws were used in this period)
Foundations – earthfast anchoring of the posts
Axe carpentry – The shaping of stubby tusk tenons and through-mortises, grooving boards, fashioning halvings and lap joints
Fixings – Shaping the characteristic Saxon “treenails”, a peg with an enlarged head, often wedged internally
Walls and roof – creating wattle panels and hurdles, for the walls and the roof underthatch respectively
Full training will be provided (no prior experience necessary). Although you will be working undercover, the course will be ‘outdoors’, so you will need to wear appropriate clothing. Drinks and food will be provided. Overnight camping (bring your own tent) is available on the site. More details will follow your booking.
You may book for one or more days, up to a maximum of all three days. Please book separately for each day that you want to attend.
As part of the exciting House of Wessex project we are running three consecutive one-day treewrighting courses with tutors from the Carpenters’ Fellowship. Places are available for one, two, or three days. During the courses, samples will be made of the key building components for a major historical reconstruction taking place in 2019.
House of Wessex timber frame
Learning will include a selection of the following:
Timber conversion – cleaving and hewing timbers into shape for posts and plates (no saws were used in this period)
Foundations – earthfast anchoring of the posts
Axe carpentry – The shaping of stubby tusk tenons and through-mortises, grooving boards, fashioning halvings and lap joints
Fixings – Shaping the characteristic Saxon “treenails”, a peg with an enlarged head, often wedged internally
Walls and roof – creating wattle panels and hurdles, for the walls and the roof underthatch respectively
Full training will be provided (no prior experience necessary). Although you will be working undercover, the course will be ‘outdoors’, so you will need to wear appropriate clothing. Drinks and food will be provided. Overnight camping (bring your own tent) is available on the site. More details will follow your booking.
You may book for one or more days, up to a maximum of all three days. Please book separately for each day that you want to attend.
During this two-day course with award-winning boat builder Colin Henwood, you will learn how to shape a single canoe paddle from Ash using hand tools.
“I can’t think of anything that could have improved a perfect couple of days – I will signing up for another one soon.” Student on Paddle making course, January 2018.
Colin was fantastic; his attention to detail and support ensured we all left with a paddle I think even he was happy with! Student on Paddle making course, January 2018.
Make your own canoe paddle at the Wood Centre
Working with ash – our superior native hardwood.
Using traditional skills and tools you will produce a complex shape with hand and eye.
Learn how to finish your smooth and elegant design.
Take home a unique and usable canoe paddle ready for a varnish or an oil finish.
Tools and materials included (if you wish to bring your own tools please discuss this with the tutor).
Colin Henwood founded his boatyard, Henwood and Dean Boatbuilders, in 1982 specialising in restoring and building wooden Thames launches. The boatyard received many awards in the UK and abroad, and in 2014 Colin was awarded Maker of the Year by the Heritage Crafts Association. In October 2016 Colin handed the boatyard over to two of his team who are successfully continuing the tradition he began 35 years ago. Not one to retire, Colin has established a workshop at the Sylva Wood Centre where he is currently re-building a 1920 Thames motor canoe.
Colin Henwood with students making a canoe paddle at the Sylva Wood Centre
Come and learn to make some shelves to your design, shape and size, which you could use for books, shoes, clothes, tools or much more besides in the company of women.
Greenwood DIY for women
During the day, you will learn to use common hand tools such as drills, knives and saws to transform ash poles and larch boards into some shelves. You will learn the basic principles of green woodworking and leave with the skills to tackle more green woodwork projects at home.
The course is aimed at those who self-identify as a woman.
Suitable for beginners / no woodworking experience necessary!
Cost: £100 per person (materials included)
Venue: Sylva Wood Centre, Oxfordshire, OX14 4QT
Tutors: Amy Cox and Ffion Jones
Booking now closed
About the tutors
Amy and FFion crossed paths at the Cherry Wood project, where they did an apprenticeship in green woodworking and woodland management.
Amy now works as a coppice worker and crafter based in Gloucestershire. Her coppice products are sourced from Westonbirt arboretum, where she is an active member of the coppice restoration project. She also loves making baskets. www.amyrosecrafts.org.uk
Ffion is a green woodworker and builder based in the bristol area. She uses traditional hand tools and techniques to create beautiful and functional items.She cuts her own materials or uses local sawmills supplying British timber, and likes turning bowls.
