Woodland Heritage champions the good use of home-grown timber from sustainable, productive woodlands for the benefit of present and future generations and has been named a 2025 Weston Charity Award winner, collecting a support package valued at over £22,000.
Did you know it’s #GrownInBritainWeek? Today’s theme is collaboration and investing in the future. In 2016, Woodland Heritage invested in Whitney Sawmills, becoming the owner of the highly respected sawmill.
If you’re here, chances are you’ve stumbled across this blog thanks to Matt Estlea’s video. Welcome! This probably means you already know who Matt is, and no introduction is needed, but for those who’ve found the blog by other means, this is a quick note to welcome you and share more about this exciting collaboration! Join the fun below by reading more about the collaboration & watch Matt’s video.
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.
A few weeks’ ago I visited the remarkable Alice Holt Research Station as a guest of Principal Pathologist Dr Sandra Denman, of Forest Research. I made the journey to Hampshire to meet Alice Dibley who is undertaking her PhD as part of a new partnership between UWE Bristol and Woodland Heritage. Alice’s work will focus on the effects of management practices on Acute Oak Decline.
A sawmill is at the centre of the timber supply chain although it has become increasingly rare as a type of business with a huge reduction in the number of hardwood sawmills in the UK in recent years. Woodland Heritage believes that, with the right approach, a healthy future exists for those that remain; something that it wanted to demonstrate by taking over Whitney Sawmills.
