Walk through the woodland and you are likely to find the woodsman at work.  The woods are his workshop, his office, his place of work.  In the past the woodland supplied the rural peasant with much of his needs:  firewood, fencing, thatching spars, wood for tools and implements.  Here at the Museum we supply all our own firewood to keep the fires in our houses burning for warmth and cooking, and the work of managing the woodland has created not only an ongoing demonstration for our visitors, but a learning process for us to discover how the labour of harvesting, collecting, stacking and daily fire management affected every area of a rural peasant’s life.  At different times of the year you may see activities such as hedge-laying, continuous hurdle fencing, wood chopping and stacking.

In a clearing you will discover a traditional charcoal burners camp and a wood yard with sawpits, mechanical saws and a crane from a much later period when automation was applied to timber processing.  On some days you may see these machines in action powered by traditional steam engines. 

A few years ago the hillside above the Museum was covered with mature beech trees. These have been felled for timber, but regeneration of a wide variety of species is taking place. In due course the hillside will again be covered with trees, but this time ash, beech, hornbeam and sycamore will form a mixed woodland.

Within the woodland there is an area of hazel coppice.  In a coppice, poles are cut every few years, leaving a ‘stool’ from which a fresh crop of poles will grow. Many species of tree have been coppiced, but today only hazel and chestnut are cut commercially. Coppiced woodlands were once of considerable importance in the rural economy, the young wood providing the raw material for many products. Coppiced hazel was used to make hurdles for sheep enclosures, feeding cages, wattle panels in timber-framed buildings, the hoops of barrels used to hold dry products, and many other purposes. Today only hurdles are made in significant numbers.

	The Museum has brought the coppice back into rotation and it provides hazel for thatching spars and wattle fencing. Many examples of coppice products can be seen on the Museum site and in the buildings. We also work closely with local coppice workers to develop outlets for many products, both traditional and new.
Crane	Racksaw	Charcoal Camp