Episode 6 Tales from the Wild Wood

Britain was once an island of trees.

For 10,000 years, they have shaped our landscapes.

And we were once a woodland people.

We managed our forests carefully, cutting and coppicing,

and they thrived under our care.

But forestry has changed.

In the last century,

plantations have replaced many of our woods.

Others have been deemed unprofitable and abandoned.

Can they survive in the 21st century?

Writer and woodsman Rob Penn believes so.

Here we go.

And for the next year, he is taking over

part of Strawberry Cottage Wood -

50 acres of unmanaged woodland in South Wales.

Oh, my God, I feel like I'm going into the jungle!

Can he bring this forgotten forest back to life again?

After ten months, Rob's time in Strawberry Cottage Wood

is drawing to a close.

He gets a final assessment on his conservation work...

We can really see the difference,

we can see to the top of the slope now.

..sees the return of the timber he cut in winter...

They are exquisitely beautiful.

..and learns what his woodland could look like in years to come.

-It feels alive and vital again, doesn't it?

-It certainly does.

Has he done enough to secure the future of his wood?

Any stump you chose to look at, they're thrusting new shoots back.

It is July in Strawberry Cottage Wood.

Over the summer, Rob has been working hard,

trying to make a profit from the timber he cut in the winter.

After success making charcoal,

he's decided to dip his toe into an altogether different market.

These are the hazel poles that came down during the coppicing

in the winter and we're now just cutting them

to eight-foot lengths

and we're going to take them down the garden centre

and try to flog them.

These are Rob's last months in Strawberry Cottage wood.

Over the next six weeks,

he must plan the long term future of the wood

and market his remaining timber to balance the books.

And there we have a bundle of five beanpoles.

They're not very straight and...

..I'm not sure if I'd buy them.

Hazel beanpoles were once ubiquitous,

but they have been replaced by Chinese bamboo.

Rob will face an uphill battle to attract a buyer.

-Mr McDonald?

-Yes?

-Hello. My name's Robert Penn and...

-Hello.

-..I have come here to try and sell you some beanpoles.

They are locally sourced,

they're cut from a wood on Hateral Hill,

which I'm managing,

and I was wondering if you might be interested in selling them

in your shop.

I'm not very sure. Um...

-Would you like to put them on the bench in the room here?

-Yes.

And we'll have a little look at them and see what...

and see what we can make of them and see what we want for them.

Great, thank you.

Neil MacDonald runs Abergavenny's largest

independent garden centre.

But like many of Britain's garden centres,

most of what he sells has been imported from abroad.

Locally sourced products are now virtually unheard of.

It's years and years

since I had anything to do with anything like this.

-I've never sold them in my life before.

-Really?

No.

It's got some kinks and bumps and what have you,

but as long as they stay up and they support the crop,

that would be the...the criteria.

Coming to me for say £2.50 for the bundle of five.

-Yeah.

-50p and me trying to get something like...

-..£4.50, £4.80 for them.

-Yep.

Would that be fair?

-That sounds fair.

-Yeah, yeah.

-That sounds fair.

Thank you.

An encouraging sign,

probably the best sign.

You know, if you extrapolate this a few years,

maybe there could be something here.

Maybe you could be bringing a few thousand beanpoles here.

in spring and selling them.

And that suddenly sounds like a part of a reasonable income of a wood.

beanpoles, locally sourced.

Let's see how they go.

Neil has only got the beanpoles on a sale or return basis.

If nobody wants them, then Rob will have to trek back and pick them up.

Finding customers is the key to his beanpole empire.

What a delightful moment. Mr McDonald,

he has undertaken to try and sell some. Goodness knows

if it'll go anywhere, but if it does...

Someone's trying to buy some.

I don't believe it.

I'm going to head over there.

Hi there. Sorry I just saw you looking at the hazel beanpoles.

-Yeah.

-Are you interested in buying some?

-Yes, absolutely.

Good Lord, how fantastic!

What would you be using them for when you got them home?

-To put my beans in.

-To put your beans in, brilliant.

Much better than bamboo. It's our native tree, isn't it?

Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

So, this is incredibly exciting to me

because I've just brought these and delivered them

to the shop, to the nursery,

in the hope that someone might be interested in buying them.

-Yeah?

-And, of course, I didn't think anyone was going to,

but you might be interested in taking them.

They're in bundles of five.

Yeah, I'm very pleased to have stumbled across them.

-I need about 20.

-Is that right?

-Yeah.

Oh, gosh, great. Thank you very much.

-That's OK. Let's have a rummage through.

-Great.

I can't believe it, he wants to buy 20.

He's taking a quarter, which is incredibly exciting.

First customer bought my beanpoles!

In the weeks that follow, word spreads from the garden centre.

Calls come in from Cardiff and Swansea markets

and a local allotment group even arrives with an order for a 100.

Thanks very much, sir.

-Thank you.

-Cheers, mate.

-Fantastic.

-See you again very soon.

-Hope so.

I'm surprised to say it, but...another happy customer.

By the end of the month, Rob has earned an extra £250,

but as August arrives and the hazelnuts ripen,

an old friend returns to Strawberry Cottage Wood

with some even more valuable timber.

-Very good indeed.

-Excellent.

-Got some chairs for you.

-Oh, terrific!

Well, I tell you what, if you just bring them up

-to the barn there and we'll put them in the barn.

-Smashing.

-Fantastic.

Back in February,

Rob cut down a large ash tree in his wood.

He invited three of Britain's leading wood workers in

to carve it up.

David Colwell, a furniture maker, bought one of the stems

and over the summer, he's been designing a new type of chair.

After six months' work, he finally has a finished product.

These are magnificent!

-You've got to try sitting on one.

-OK!

-Ah! And they are...

-Comfy, aren't they?

-Exceedingly comfortable.

-See, it's the spring.

-Is that what it is?

-Well, that's part of it.

-Part of it.

Yeah, because you get the spring with the ash.

-Lovely white colour, lovely white colour.

-Yeah.

David uses a process of steam bending to shape the wood,

creating unique designs that celebrate the strength

and flexibility of ash timber.

Each one of these chairs will sell for £500.

These were prototypes

for the Church of England competition

for stacking-linking chairs for churches.

And it's been a real pleasure to use this timber, actually.

It's been very nice, very nice indeed.

David they look exquisite.

Good, good. I think to a point what happens with vernacular traditions

-is that if they work really well...

-Yeah.

-..they look pretty good...

-Yes.

-And you can kind of tell.

If it doesn't look right, chances are you've got something wrong.

David I can't thank you enough for bringing these chairs to show me.

It sort of broadens my mind as to the potential...

-Of the material?

-Yeah.

Yes, yes.

Well, thank you very much also, it's been very good to do it.

David agrees to take more wood next year and buoyed by his visit,

Rob sets off to find out how the other wood workers have fared.

Ralph Curtis, the bowl maker, is still waiting for his timber to dry,

but John Lloyd, who bought most of the main trunk,

is ready to put Rob's timber under the saw.

-John.

-Hello, Rob.

-How are you?

-Not too bad, my friend, yourself?

-Very good, thank you. Nice to see you.

-Good to see you again.

Well, this is your timber.

-Is it? Great.

-Day of reckoning is upon us.

We've had it from you, it's gone into the mill.

The guys in the mill have planked it out to the dimensional thicknesses.

Great.

The next little thing is we'll put it on the machines

-and we'll see what we can get for you.

-OK, good.

John uses the first plank of Rob's timber to mill

baseball bats for the American market.

He also works with Britain's biggest tool companies, providing

handles for everything from pitchforks to boathooks.

After an hour of work, he is able to show Rob exactly

what can be sawn from Strawberry Cottage Wood timber.

-Hi, John.

-Hi, Rob.

How we doing?

Well, this is just a little example of the sort of products

-that we could get from the good timber that you brought in.

-Amazing!

We've got croquet mallets, we've got cricket stumps,

baseball bats, all top quality, sports-grade ash

and then as the ash or your timber varies,

we can put it into different markets.

The idea is really to utilize as much as you can from the log

-to turn it into revenue.

-Yeah.

The timber which you've supplied, some of it is absolutely beautiful.

I mean, there's your baseball bat, OK? Look at the grain,

it's fantastically white, it's well grown.

I mean, that is top quality sports ash.

-And here's a piece of material we're buying from the States.

-Yep.

Now, that also is nice, perhaps not as white as yours,

a little bit browner, but it really sort of beggars

the question that we could, if there was infrastructure,

we could actually source the raw material from Great Britain.

John imports 90% of his ash from abroad.

But the quality of what Britain could produce

is as good as anywhere in the world.

And in one of Rob's planks,

John has found timber suitable for the top level of sport.

Here you are Rob, this is some raw material which came from your woods.

It does meet the International Standard.

We manufactured them in accordance to those regulations.

They're more than good enough,

timber's grown in Great Britain, fabulous product, go and use it.

Fantastic. Great! OK, OK.

When I began working in Strawberry Cottage Wood almost ten months ago,

never in my wildest dreams did I think that I'd be standing here

with a bunch of international quality cricket stumps

made from ash from MY wood.

This is profoundly satisfying.

But John's present comes with responsibilities.

He supplies stumps to the MCC

and has nominated Rob's timber for the next England match.

So, John Lloyd has got these stumps not just any cricket match

but into a One-Day International,

the One-Day International between England and South Africa in Cardiff.

It is Wales' most important cricket match of the year.

And under no circumstances do I want these stumps to be rejected

because the painting is flawed.

The next morning, two hours before play starts,

Rob arrives at Glamorgan Cricket Club.

-Keith.

-Hi, you must be Rob.

-Yes.

The paint has only just dried on the stumps as he delivers them

to the head groundsman.

They look a nice bit of ash.

Sorry I'm a bit late.

Over 15,000 people have turned up for the match.

And Rob's stumps are centre of the show.

Terrifically exciting.

Just hope my stumps don't split.

England get off to a flying start,

but within minutes, the Welsh weather closes in.

THUNDER

Five very entertaining overs,

but the rain has arrived and the players are off.

The stumps weren't tested, which is probably a good thing,

but it remains deeply satisfying that ash from my wood

has been turned into International Standard cricket stumps

and used here.

The wet weather continues in Strawberry Cottage Wood.

And whilst it might interrupt cricket,

the rain is the lifeblood of the trees.

After ten months of hard work,

the areas Rob has been working in are finally starting to rejuvenate.

This is the large ash tree that we cut down five months ago

and back then, this area was a scene of total devastation.

Now, this ash is coming back to life.

New shoots are growing again on almost any stump

that you choose to look at in this wood.

They're thrusting new shoots back, and this is the fundamental point

about British woodlands - you cut our trees down and they grow again.

When Rob took over the wood,

his ambition was to bring it back to good health.

He has worked to restore a balance between different species

and encourage new growth.

And with the year drawing to a close,

the conservationist who helped him get it started

is returning for a final visit.

-Gareth.

-Rob.

-How are you?

-I'm good, mate. Good to see you.

-Good to see you, too.

-Excellent.

Welcome back, I'm very keen to show you around.

Fantastic, let's go.

Gareth Ellis is the biodiversity officer

for the Brecon Beacons National Park.

He helped Rob set up his management plan and has advised him

throughout the year.

So, this is the area where we cleared a lot of the smaller trees

and, as you can see, it's affected quite a big change.

-It has. Big change from when I was here last.

-Yeah.

You've obviously done quite a lot of work here.

You've taken out that layer of younger trees, the understory,

and you've let so much more light in.

In October last year,

Gareth and Rob had battled through the lower part of the wood.

Alder and elder trees crowded the understory,

making even the most basic woodland tasks impossible.

I can't really see...I'm not sure where the fence line is.

I'm a bit lost now.

Throughout the year, Rob cut back these smaller trees,

allowing light in and giving space to the large oak and ash standards.

We can really see the difference,

we can see to the top of the slope now.

In through the trees, great layers of ground cover,

great re-growth of the coppice, all the way throughout the woodland,

lots of light coming in, it's fantastic.

The light on the forest floor has transformed the lower part

of the wood.

But in the upper section,

where Rob has been restoring an abandoned hazel coppice,

there is less positive news.

An intruder has been at work.

It does seem to see that they've lost some of their tops.

-What here?

-Yeah.

So, I'm pretty sure some sheep have got in here.

They could have come through here and done some real, real damage,

and they'll undo your six months of hard winter work,

they'll undo it in a morning.

This is going to be your product in the future.

And when it's at this stage, it's quite young and fragile.

It's so important that you come back and monitor it and protect it,

and you'll be doing this for the next few years.

So ongoing management.

It's ongoing, you've got to look after your product

-all the way through its growth cycle.

-Cool.

Rob must fence off his hazel to keep it protected.

Tasks like this cost money. And for his forest to survive

in the long term, Rob must make a plan for the rest

of Strawberry Cottage Wood.

Now, you've got to really start thinking about your future.

If we look at the rest of the wood, you've got 150 stools out here,

still waiting to be cut.

You can't go a year without income.

You need to look at the wood, look at your products

and start thinking how could I divide up the woodland

so that there's always enough to harvest, enough to keep me busy

and enough product to sell to keep me in business and still

enough that I can come back round and start the whole process again.

Great.

You've started something, you've started something quite

special here in the woodland, and it's now up to you to take

that on forward and take that through for the next generations.

The idea behind the project is to try and encourage people

back into managing woods, but trees grow very slowly.

You have to put your timescale into completely different footing.

That's a great leap of faith, really, for modern people,

but you do have to think in those terms

because it doesn't happen this decade,

it doesn't happen in my lifetime.

Rob's work at Strawberry Cottage has improved its health,

but our forests will only thrive

if they are carefully managed over decades.

Rob needs to find out how he can build on his first year

and ensure the long-term survival of his wood.

The following week he travels north, to the Malvern Hills, where one man

has embarked on a project that might offer him some useful solutions.

Dave.

Ah! Hi, Rob.

-How you doing?

-Very well, nice to see you.

-Excellent.

-Yes. Well welcome to Park Wood.

-Thank you very much indeed.

Dave Jackson has spent the last five years managing Park Wood,

an ancient hazel coppice of a similar size

to Strawberry Cottage Wood and which has been untouched

for 50 years.

So, what did it look like before you started, Dave?

Pretty much like you can see all around here.

It was very dark, there was predominately hazel understory

and lots of oaks above it basically suppressing it.

The plan, in terms of the future, is to grow top quality timber,

top quality hazel rods, it's got to be a working wood,

it's got to pay its way.

-It's the only way to actually ensure a safe future of a woodland.

-OK.

Dave runs a business selling woodland products

to the local market.

He's had to make all of his overgrown hazel trees turn a profit

so that he can still be in business when the younger stems re-grow.

So, here, Rob, we've got some examples

of the primary products that I'm getting from the derelict coppice.

Here we've got a very small, poor quality pile of timber,

-which we convert it into charcoal.

-Yeah.

Here we have one of the oak butts, which is awaiting milling

-and planking. You'd possibly get £700 for that.

-OK.

And here?

This wood chip is all the twiggy tops, the brash,

all the gnarly stuff just like the top of this oak tree,

-this limb here, which has obviously recently fallen off.

-Yeah.

That can be chipped and it can be converted into biochar,

which is essentially charcoal, very fine charcoal,

which has historically been used as a soil conditioner.

And in the context of this woodland, it gets me down

to zero waste and also I can convert this into a carbon negative product.

Dave has divided his wood into eight sections or coops.

He clears one each year,

and then returns after eight years to harvest a new crop of hazel rods.

This scheme gives a year-round income

and has had a profound effect on the health of the wood.

So here we're in the second coop, the one we did

the year prior to the first one we saw,

and not only is the hazel getting bigger,

but the striking difference here is the wild flowers.

This is what Rob's wood should look like next year.

Dormant seeds have finally received sunlight

and blossomed to create an incredible carpet of flowers.

It feels alive and vital again doesn't it?

It certainly does, but the beauty of this ancient system

is that it ticks all the boxes, it's not just about growing

hazel rods, it's all about the diversity of the wild flowers,

the flora and fauna, which you encourage by doing that coppicing.

These coops show the future potential

for Strawberry Cottage Wood.

And if Rob continues his work,

his coppiced hazel trees will produce a valuable crop of timber.

This is one of the earlier sections that we did in the wood.

Here, the hazel is really, really starting to grow.

If you look in there, that is from one old,

very big derelict stool it would have been,

and that is absolutely wonderful re-growth -

there's many, many stems in there.

I would expect the majority of those to actually grow into good rods,

which can be used and be ploughed back into the rural economy.

Fantastic.

This is my future.

I've got a family to support, I've got a wife, I've got four kids.

I can't do this for fun, it's vital that it pays its way.

But you don't do this just for the money. You know,

you're not going to ever be a rich coppice worker.

You don't see many woodland workers driving flash cars,

just beat up Land Rovers.

So, you've got to do it for the love of it,

but, of course, you've got to provide a living.

Very inspiring.

Dave's a pretty inspiring guy,

because so much of the work that he's undertaken here he's got right.

And what he's done is he's proved that there is

a balance, a balance between conservation and economic viability.

Strawberry Cottage Wood is behind.

He's sort of three or four years ahead of me here,

but what Dave shows is a positive boost

to the idea that management of British woods can work.

Dave's model is a template Rob can use in the coming years.

His management will continue.

But as the seasons begin to change in Strawberry Cottage Wood,

he must prepare to return to life outside of his forest.

A low-pressure system has just passed through

the Black Mountains and after the torrential rain,

we've now got very strong winds,

which are curling the trees above me.

And with that wind, comes the first sense of autumn

and that brings a sense of melancholy.

I've been working in the woods,

and generally I come away with an overwhelming sense of contentment.

It's a mainline to nature that you get

when you're working in a wood all day.

And, you know, I've come to sort of need

that daily fix of...of Prozac.

Rob will continue managing this wood long into the future.

But he will do so with the help of the local woodland group.

His last task is an important mark for the end of his first year.

So, it's the end of August

and I've decided to throw a party.

And I'm putting a tent up and making the wood look shipshape

because we've invited all of the people who've contributed

advice and assistance to me over the course of the year.

For 12 months, Rob's challenge has been to find

a modern role for our woodlands.

He has felled trees, planted saplings and sold timber products.

But his work has only been possible because a large team of woodsmen

and experts have offered help and advice.

This is his chance to say thank you.

-How you doing?

-Yeah, good.

Good to see you.

-Hi, Dave.

-How are you?

-Good to see you.

-Good to see you.

-How are you keeping?

-Wyndham, how are you, sir? Nice to see you.

-And you, too.

45 guests, from mountain bikers to sawmill owners have returned

to enjoy a barbeque in a rejuvenated Strawberry Cottage Wood.

So, what's really lovely about this is seeing all the faces,

it's like having the whole year in fast forward.

And some of these people I haven't seen for a good ten months,

so it's really delightful.

The food for the barbeque comes entirely from this wood,

including all of the squirrels Rob trapped in the springtime.

We're cooking on charcoal made in that kiln a couple of weeks ago.

The sausages are all from Jacqueline, the sow we kept

in the wood down there in the winter.

The squirrels are, obviously, trapped right here, too.

And this is some rather delicious sauce to go with the squirrels.

And this is perry made from pears from my garden.

Chin-chin.

Trees are a key to our quality of life.

You only have to walk ten yards into a woodland

to sense that there's a different spirit in the air.

Our woods have a role in renewable bio fuels,

in carbon sequestration. All of these things are important.

If we lose them, then we lose the oldest relationship

we have with the British landscape.

And when those woods are gone, they're gone,

and that relationship will be gone, as well.

Our woods are a vital part of who we are.

Rob has shown that managing them is not easy,

but it can be done.

Our future could well depend on them,

just as our history is written in them.

And for people like Rob,

guaranteeing their survival will become a lifetime of work.

So, this party marks the end of my first year managing this wood.

Project managing the wood will go on for years,

for decades possibly, but what this shows is that though there are

many reasons to manage a wood, above all, all of them must encourage us

back into using the woods and enjoying them for what they are.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd