Woodland Heritage Trustee Adrian Jowitt shows how a desire to use timber, coupled with a simple phone call, led him to the milling of Western Red Cedar in a Devon woodland en route to a more sustainable solution. Here’s one way to use more homegrown timber at home.
When Christian Gaze and I started Gaze Burvill 31 years ago, we had a vision of creating a beautiful collection of outdoor furniture using entirely oak grown in the UK. I was inspired by my one-year course at John Makepeace’s Hooke Park in Dorset where I had learnt about the necessity of adding value to British-grown woods to feed a virtuous cycle of growing and improving our woodlands.
On Thursday, 2nd April 2026, the charity Woodland Heritage launched Open Woods & Workshops, a network of woodlands and workshops hosting open days across the UK throughout June 2026. The initiative enables over 1,000 attendees to see first-hand the role trees and timber can have in our future.
Today Woodland Heritage announces a £238,442 grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to create ‘Woodland Heritage Skills’; two years of educational workshops, digital educational assets and collaboration with its members and partners to deliver the charity’s new Open Woods & Workshops initiative.
James Wood, the charity’s demonstration woodland, is more than a plantation of trees to grow fine timber. It is a project that gives back in terms of information and education. Inspired by James Stratton it lives on the kindness of volunteers.
As July began, a group of ‘early career’ forestry professionals toured James Wood, Somerset. The event was run by the Institute of Chartered Foresters as part of a study tour with the group guided by Norbert Kovacs of Pryor & Rickett Silviculture.
