Linking Tree Growers with Wood Users

The Woodland to Workshop course broadens horizons and raises awareness by educating participants from the forest through to the workshop and beyond. This ground-breaking course is supported by knowledgeable practitioners and eminent speakers from the timber industry. Based in the woodland, timber yard, sawmill and joinery workshop for two days, with a third spent at the Duchy of Cornwall’s woodlands nearby.

These innovative courses often have a waiting list to attend as numbers are restricted to enable a ‘hands on’ and highly interactive approach, ensuring a learning opportunity of enduring quality that has been enjoyed by hundreds of passionate people over the years.

Key facts

Location: Each course is run from Whitney Sawmills, near Hay-on-Wye in Herefordshire with one day spent in nearby woodlands in the same county.

Dates: TBC for 2024 and 2025. Apply below to register your interest now as courses routinely sell out.

Cost: £650 per person.  There is a bursary scheme.

CPD: In agreement with the Institute of Chartered Foresters members of the Institute can claim up to a maximum of 24 hours CPD for attendance and participation in this event.

What’s not included? Accommodation or return transport from your home.

Get your place!

Applications are welcomed year-round.  The course is normally run for a maximum of twelve people, selected in advance to have as diverse a group as possible.

Woodland Heritage aims to confirm each group six weeks in advance of a course being run.

 

Your course pack and tutors will help you learn more about:

  • Tree species selection

  • Planting designs in relation to tree competition and the landscape

  • Vegetation control, pruning and cleaning, thinning

  • Protection from grey squirrels and deer

  • The recognition of potentially valuable stems of oak

  • Distinguishing between normal drying splits and shakes

  • Minimising damage caused by beetles

  • Practice at identifying various kinds of damage and undesirable features of logs, including woodpecker damage, spiral grain and blue stain fungi and wide sapwood

  • Likely markets for unusual logs including curved stems, “pippy” oak, and ripplegrained sycamore

  • The merits of a portable band saw

  • Practice at measuring and calculating timber volumes both in the forest and the sawmill. The importance of accuracy and reliability. The losses incurred when converting a log to planks were also discussed

  • Air drying

Filmed in 2015, the below video can help you to get a feel for the course, why it began and why it remains so relevant today.