Both of these pieces were written as social media posts for Devon Rural Skills Trust. They are of their moment, and I hope they haven’t dated too quickly; what additions I have made are in square brackets (and my apologies for the repetition). The first site was on a hilltop near Ivybridge, south Devon, with glorious views and the traffic-hum of the A-38 ever present. … Read more
16 October 2021: Blackthorn
To begin I took home some blackthorn, cut out of a gorgeously dense Devon-style hedge beside a deeply-sunken lane on the edge of Dartmoor. Blackthorn is one of the many magical trees in British folklore, a gateway into an enchanted world. I split the recovered branch wood, sawed it to length, removed the bark and the waste wood with a hand axe, and began to carve. … Read more
It was worth stepping back from the worksite and looking from a distance: the farm’s hedges were a dazzle of yellows, browns and greens as the leaves really begin to show autumn is with us.
Easy to forget this is a worked landscape. Easy to forget the hedges and the banks they grow on are the result of a centuries-long cycle of rejuvenation and repair. … Read more
Thought I would pull together the social media posts on the first two courses Devon Rural Skills Trust has run since the long, frustrating Covid shutdown. They were written, of course, to aid the charity’s publicity but I hope they tell a story too, however briefly.
25 September
It means so much to be back running courses again after 18 months of uncertainty. … Read more
“Rake making still survives in certain country districts, for its basic material is cheap and plentiful, and the yearly demand from farmers is unfailing, though much diminished owing to the use of machinery.”
The quotation, from H.L.Edlin’s 1949 Woodland Crafts of Britain, did not age well. By the mid-1960s demand for wooden hay rakes had fallen to such an extent there were few makers left, their skills superseded by machinery and mass production, as Edlin had hinted. … Read more