by Ben Law
As I have worked sweet chestnut as both a coppice worker and a woodworker, there are particular qualities that make it stand out. The first must be its ability to cleave. Sweet chestnut wants to split and this ability opens up the opportunity for a range of cleft products. The process of cleaving that forces the fibres apart keeps much of the strength of the original pole, and far more than had it been sawn. In a chestnut ‘shake’ or ‘shingle’, the cleft face sheds water as opposed to a sawn face, which invites the cut fibres to act like a sponge and suck moisture into the wood.
Another fine quality of sweet chestnut is its natural durability resulting from the large amounts of tannic acid contained within it – hence its favoured use for fence posts. This natural durability, similar to that of oak, allows the coppice worker to produce a range of products from sweet chestnut with the confidence that they will last.
Added to its durability is sweet chestnut’s ability to produce heartwood at a very young age. A pole of sweet chestnut rarely has more than four years of sapwood, resulting in poles of a small diameter of which a large part is the durable heartwood.
Yet another of its qualities is its tremendous speed of growth. Most of the coppiced stools I cut put on six to eight feet of re-growth in the first year. This is particularly important as it means it grows beyond deer-grazing height in its first year.
The last fine quality of sweet chestnut I want to mention is the nuts themselves, cleverly encased in a spiky case, which keeps the squirrels at bay until they are ripe and beginning to fall. This nut, low in fat but high in protein, is an important staple in some countries.
When I first spent my year of observation at Prickly Nut Wood, I was only aware of a few qualities and uses of sweet chestnut. Now, 20 years later, I cannot praise highly enough this productive coppice tree.
Having mastered cleaving the six-foot fence post, I moved onto cleaving rails. Sweet chestnut post and rail fencing is the vernacular style in Sussex and the market for the rails is fairly constant. The rails are cleaved out of coppiced sweet chestnut of 30 to 35 years of age, producing poles of around 11 to 13 inches diameter at the butt. These poles are then crosscut into ten-foot lengths and then cleaved into quarters. This involves first cleaving the pole in half, and then each half is cleaved to create the four quarters. These rails are trimmed at each end to form a rustic tenon that inserts into the mortise. Part of the charm is that the rails are often not straight, and slightly curvy rails can be matched as pairs one above the other in a bay in the fence. Keeping these curvy pieces ensures more rails and more return to the coppice worker, but also can test the skills of the woodsman and his ability to read the pole before cleaving. As the cleaving becomes more difficult, the use of wedges has its limitations as there is little control in bringing the split back into line once it begins to run off. This calls for a cleaving break.
10 March
Today I set out with a plan for making some chestnut pales. Partly because I need some pales, but also to experience cleaving with a froe and cleaving break. I made a simple cleaving break in the copse by high-cutting two poles, leaving about six foot of growth from the stool, and on to these I fixed two cross poles. The cross poles I fixed on top of each other where they attached to the first six-foot upright, and then they opened up and attached to each side of the other six-foot pole. The cross poles formed a narrow triangle. This allowed me to insert a range of different-sized poles into the break. I knocked the end of my froe into the sweet chestnut round and at first the split ran centrally, but as I worked the froe further into the pole the split began to run off. I placed the pole into the vice of the cleaving brake and inserted my hand into the split and pressed down on the thicker side of the split whilst levering with the froe. This caused the split that was running out to return to its original central course. At last I have a method to control the cleave. This feels like a eureka moment. I now feel confident in my ability to cleave poles at a good pace, and in doing so to add value to this coppice resource. I’m touched by the ease with which the splits can be returned and re-centred and how responsive the wood is to my touch. Amazing to think how coppice workers devised such simple yet effective brakes and how many have been in use across the chestnut coppices in the south-east.
Having mastered cleaving with a froe, I wanted to master cleaving small-diameter poles with a cleaving adze. These small adzes are traditional in Sussex and I have had a few made up by local blacksmiths. The best was probably the one forged by David Wright of Chiddingfold forge. This is a beautiful cleaving adze, but is a little large for cleaving one- to one-and-a-half-inch chestnut poles. I have two very small adzes made for me by Steve Darby of Green Man Ironwork. Although the finish is not as fine as David Wright’s, the light weight of this adze makes it perfect for cleaving small rods for hurdle panels. When cleaving a small rod with a cleaving adze I start by splitting the star in the thin end of the rod and working down the rod using the adze. Once it begins to run out, I place the rod in the break and in inserting my fingers into the cleave, I put downward pressure on the thick side of the cleave and it soon begins to correct itself. After awhile, the clicking sound of the adze working its way down the rod becomes so familiar that any run-off can almost be gauged by the change in sound. After a couple of days of cleaving this way, the feel and process will be almost automatic and it will be rare that a cleave runs out.
With the ability to cleave chestnut from small rods of less than an inch diameter up to large logs, it was time to make a range of products to sell.
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The market for hurdles has remained good, despite the fact that their traditional use for folding or penning sheep has now disappeared. The attractiveness of the wattle hurdle has meant that it is a coppice staple through sales into the garden sector. Different parts of the country have their own particular styles and weaves of hurdle, but it is rare that I have good-quality hazel for hurdle making. Most of my hazel is obtained from restoring derelict coppice, and beyond that I use chestnut. With both poor-quality hazel and chestnut I make panels rather than hurdles as they use shorter lengths of poorer-quality material and in my opinion produce a more durable alternative to the traditional hazel hurdle. The panels I make consist of sweet chestnut posts about 4 inches in diameter and then cleft chestnut posts of similar size to form the top and bottom of the panel. The curve of the half round faces outwards from the panel and helps protect the woven material, keeping it off the ground and protected with a capping. Between the two half rounds I place chestnut zales. The half rounds are drilled top and bottom, and the zales are bent into place. The split hazel or chestnut for the weave is woven around the zales. This produces a durable, attractive panel and makes good use of the materials I have available. Most years I have a number of orders for these panels and they continue to be a good revenue stream.
Working with such a durable timber as chestnut, a continuous flow of ideas arises in me as to what to make from the coppice poles. This varies from simply rustic furniture ideas through to more complex projects. One design I worked on in the early days was a chestnut seat with a rose arbour above. I used a forked chestnut stem (or a prog) and matching curves each side of the prog to create an interesting back to the seat. The seat itself was a couple of chestnut planks. These I hewed out of a large chestnut pole using a long-handled carpenter’s adze. After constructing the first of these seats, I photographed the end result and marketed it as a product to be made to order. I soon realised that selling it as a chestnut seat with rose arbour was long-winded and not eye-catching. When I re-marketed the product as a loveseat, the number of orders quickly increased. I learned my first lesson in marketing.
As much as I work out patterns and designs for rustic furniture, when you are working with the natural forms and shapes of trees the opportunity to build free-form should not be ignored. Sometimes reacting spontaneously and going with what feels right can produce a unique item. An example of this happened in the summer of 2000. I had been making bentwood
chairs with my then apprentices Anthony and Ele Waters, and we had been carefully constructing seats and curve patterns for the backs. We had all been out to the Hollist Arms and had quite a celebratory party night, during which beer and tequila slammers had been consumed. The following day was a Sunday and we all rose for breakfast a little hungover. After some coffee and breakfast I suggested to Anthony that we build a free-form chair. We both grabbed pieces of hazel and randomly nailed on the pieces in an irregular pattern. The chair stood out from the others with its quirky style and we named it the ‘tequila chair’. The next day was Bank Holiday Monday and we went to the village recreation ground to set up stall at the annual village fête. The fête had not long been open when a man offered to buy a pair of bentwood chairs. When I asked which two he would like, he chose an elegant bentwood design and the tequila chair. I learnt two lessons from this process: the first, to allow free-form to play a part in creating your designs; the second, to transform the state of mind that a hangover can create into a creative opportunity. So, if I ever rise with a hangover, rather than waste a day of my life complaining about how I feel, I engage with the day and take it as a creative opportunity. The slightly trancelike feeling one has of not being fully in the world is an opportunity that can be harnessed for creative expression.
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When I first started 20 years ago, as well as my desire to deepen my knowledge of the woods, I was driven by a dislike of how much unsustainable timber we import. One area of the market I was interested in was charcoal. Charcoal is a traditional coppice product, yet at the time 98 per cent of what was consumed in the UK was imported. This imported charcoal for the most part was coming from environmentally degraded landscapes, such as rainforest and mangrove swamps. Charcoal burning seemed a good area in which to begin, especially when I had so much derelict coppice and at the time a limited knowledge of how to market it.
To learn the basics of charcoal burning, I went on a course at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum. The museum, situated near to me at the foot of the South Downs in Singleton, has been an inspiration and a place I regularly visit. It has been established for 40 years, and in its beautiful setting has collected and reconstructed on-site traditional buildings and artefacts from the countryside of the Weald. It also runs a number of courses in traditional crafts and building skills. At the time the museum’s charcoal burner was Alan Waters. Alan has been working in and out of hazel coppice for a number of years, and currently runs his own company making coppice products. He has revived the Sussex ‘pimp’, a circular bundle of kindling referred to by Herbert Edlin in his classic text, Woodland Crafts in Britain.
The one-day course with Alan was informative and gave many pointers, but was limited in the amount of practical experience I was able to gain from it. Then Alan offered me the opportunity to work with him at the museum if I was serious about charcoal burning. I grasped this opportunity and joined him at the museum, and whilst unloading a kiln he answered some of my many questions. I ordered my first kiln from Bryan Wilson, who runs a forge in Mid-Wales. I still have that kiln and although the steel has worn through in places, it is still operational. Bryan is still making quality charcoal kilns and I purchased another from him recently.
I clearly remember my first burn. I levelled a hearth to place the kiln on and stockpiled the soil for earthing-up. I then positioned the steel inlets and sat the kiln on top of them. I had a pile of well-seasoned chestnut, varying in diameter from about three to seven inches. I laid out some of the larger pieces to create the cartwheel pattern at the base that allows a clear flow of air through the inlets to the centre of the fire. I then split some of the larger pieces in half with an axe and laid them on top of the cartwheel pieces to close off the inlets, forming tunnels at the base of the kiln. I then added a little kindling in the centre and began to load the kiln, packing the pieces of wood in as tightly as possible like a giant, circular jigsaw. The larger pieces I placed in the centre and the smaller ones towards the outside and the top. After a few hours of sawing, splitting and packing, the kiln was full and I chocked up the lid with a few small logs that I could remove at the appropriate time in the burn to allow the lid to close.
With the kiln filled it was time to light my first burn. I remember the slightly nervous feeling of lighting my first kiln in the woods and the large fire I was about to create. My mind wandered to the many charcoal burners of the past who had eked out a living from making charcoal without the luxury of a steel kiln to control the blaze and breakout of the fire. Their lives had been hard. They lived with their families in huts in the woodlands where they worked, staying up many nights to tend and control the fire as it smouldered and tried to break through the turf and soil piled on to the blaze. The charcoal burner’s chair was a one-legged stool, designed so that if you fell asleep you would fall off, awakening you. It was meant to keep you vigilant at all times, as your livelihood could easily burn away.
With the relative ease of the task ahead now placed in perspective, I collected a bucket of red-hot embers from the outdoor kitchen fire and, armed with a pair of gauntlets, a shovel and a crowbar, I made my way to light my first burn. I emptied the bucket of embers by two of the air inlets and, using a thin stick, pushed the embers into the centre of the kiln so they rested amongst the kindling. With the draw of air through the tunnelled vents, it was not long before the kindling caught alight from the embers in the fire. The initial few minutes produced the reassuring sounds of crackling as the kindling ignited, and then the first swirls of smoke started to emerge from the gap between the chocked-up lid and the kiln. As the minutes passed, the intensity of the crackling sound increased, as did the smoke, thick and white, which flowed out of the kiln and up into the sky. The whole kiln began to resemble a huge cauldron in which some magical concoction was brewing.
What was occurring was the first steps in the process of the distillation of wood. The fire continued to burn and spread from the centre to the edges of the kiln. As the fire reached the outside edge of the kiln, and red embers were clearly visible between the air inlets, I earthed up the air gap at the bottom of the kiln between the inlets to move the fire around. Soon I was earthing up between more inlets and it was not long before the inlets were all that was left visible. Next, I placed the chimneys on alternative inlets and earthed up around them, turning the inlets into outlets. Usually there is an immediate roar as the chimney begins to draw and the smoke begins to appear out of the chimneys, as well as the still-open gap between the lid and the kiln. Next, I removed the chocks from between the lid and the kiln, and the lid closed the kiln. This usually coincides with a loud hiss, flames shooting out of the inlets, and a ring of fire that burns off the gases often appearing around the top and the bottom of the kiln. This is a spectacular moment in the charcoal-burning process and, although a little unpredictable, is a moment all charcoal burners look forward to. After a few minutes the gases burned themselves out and I shovelled more earth over the lid; using the gauntlets I pushed the soil into the seal where the lid and kiln met. The process of earthing-up the lid and the base between the inlets gives a small level of continuity to traditional charcoal burners who did not have steel kilns, and relied totally on earthing-up to control their burns and would be far more busy throughout the burn. At this point the kiln was under control and could be left for a period to settle into its slow-burning routine. The fire was still burning within the kiln with a restricted supply of oxygen, the end result being a product of almost pure carbon.
I usually return to the kiln about an hour later to check all the chimneys are puffing well and the inlets are drawing in sufficient air. The kiln seems almost orderly at this stage. The chaos of the cauldron of swirling white smoke is transformed into upright pillars of smoke and glowing inlets below. Weather conditions can have a major impact on the outcome of a charcoal burn, as well as the amount of time that I need to spend with the kiln. If the wind picks up, I may need to spend a lot of time changing chimneys and inlets to
ensure that the burn remains more even. This may entail many visits at night. Even on a still night I always visit the kiln to swap inlets and chimneys once, to ensure an even burn and maximise the volume of finished charcoal. This is always a special visit and often I will sit with the kiln for a while, watching the plumes of smoke against the moonlight and the warm, orange glow emitting from the inlets below. Sitting quietly beside a warm kiln in the middle of the night when most people are sleeping, in the middle of an English woodland, is a unique experience. The woods come alive at night and on most visits I will hear, if not see, nocturnal woodland life in action.
21 June
I find myself on the shortest night sitting around the kiln, surveying this woodland scene I know so well. I have moved the kiln to ‘captains’, and I’m beginning to work through some of the piles of chestnut we stacked two years ago when we re-coppiced this area and cleared the rhododendron. I love the way my ears wake up when it is dark and how I can discern small scratchings and rustlings that I would easily miss during the daylight. The sound of the smallest creature is so amplified in the dark because we really listen. I wish I could listen as well during the day. The kiln has burnt well tonight, nice and even, and should supply enough bags for the wood fair. Estimate there is enough wood for about another 10 burns up at captains – should be enough to see out this summer, unless it turns into a heat wave. Disturbed a badger on my return home.