Small Woodland Owners' Group (SWOG)

Category: Articles

  • Woodland volunteers: advice for owners

    We were recently asked to provide some advice for small woodland owners on points to consider when inviting friends or other willing volunteers to work in their woodland, for example to help with bringing coppice back into active management. Legal and insurance issues were of particular concern. Below is a selection of recommendations, which can…

  • From the Archive: Axes

    Carlton Boyce gets a handle on axes and hymns his favourite make, Gränsfors Bruk From Living Woods Issue 41 The invention of the axe transformed the way primitive man practised agriculture. Wielding an axe enabled him to create pasture from forest, build shelters, cut firewood and defend himself from attack. The invention of the axe…

  • Building a new ‘Old Barn’ Part II

    It’s been a long and challenging year in the life of this project.  We have been transforming 20 or so standing woodland oak trees, about 100 years old to a standing oak framed barn which hopefully will last for many more years than that. 

  • Are Small Woodland Owners missing a trick?

    The Royal Forestry Society has recently published Bringing woodland into management: The missed opportunities in England and Wales. This pithy report drives home the problems of woodland management in England and Wales.

  • Smoked leaf prints

    Thanks to Northamptonshire Archives for permission to reproduce this 1950s craft project. These simple leaf prints look really striking and we’ve transposed the hand-written instructions from 1956. It involves fire and fat, so proceed at your own risk.

  • Bent to their will

    Sue and Andy Malleson needed a bit more seating in their wood, so took themselves off on a bentwood chair-making courses at Hanwell Wine Estate with John Hollins. 

  • Gimme Shelter – Building a Simple Woodland Shelter

    Once you’ve spent any amount of time in the woods, you’ll probably discover that you need some kind of protection from the elements.  Or as Mick Jagger once sang “If I don’t get some shelter …Oh yeah, I’m gonna fade away” . 

  • Torthworth’s trees

    Tortworth Churchyard in South Gloucestershire is home to one of Britain’s most ancient sweet chestnut trees, so old in fact, that the first commemorative plaque about the tree is itself 200 years old.

  • Red squirrels return to the Highlands

    Few woodland owners relish sharing their wood with grey squirrels, but native red squirrels are a different matter. Trees for Life has launched an appeal to raise £22,000 to ensure a better future for red squirrels in the Highlands of Scotland.

  • Building a New ‘Old’ Barn – Part I

    As a tiny acorn can eventually lead to much bigger things, so has the seed of an idea I had of building a new barn to season my wood and store my forestry equipment.   I have been managing two small woodlands on the edge of the High Weald AONB of  East Sussex for 3 or…

  • Butterfly Notes

    Thanks to Steve Wheatley and Neil Hulme of Butterfly Conservation for these notes about butterfly species and how to encourage them in woodlands.       Butterflies of Plattershill Woods Tottington butterflies Combwell butterflies

  • Rides Revisited

    Some of you may have been aware of the ride improvement project  SWOG members in the south east  have benefitted from over the last 18 months or so.  (See articles in last year’s March and June  newsletters, and occasional  updates here).