Hampshire Woodland wanted

[AndyFroy]

Woodland required in Hampshire to use to practice my bushcraft and survival skills. I am a 30 year old based in Eastleigh near Southampton, training to be a survival and bushcraft instructor. I am booked in to take my instructors course next summer. I have qualifications including level two bushcraft survival and wilderness skills. I have plans to start my own family business next year promoting and training survival and bushcraft skills. If a good relationship was struck between myself and a land owner potential future business would be great. I am happy to provide references as reassurance I will take care of your land and leave it as I find it. Happy to pay a fee or work on the land as a return favour. Please contact me for an informal chat on 07900 213824 alternatively email me at [email protected]. Thank you for your time.

[splodger]

hi andy - welcome to the forum.
although i am based in hampshire i can't directly help with your quest - but i thought i would throw in a couple of possibilities for you - have you tried contacting either the national trust or hampshire county council? both of whom own substantial areas of woodland in the area. might be worth making a few enquiries.

[Dexter's Shed]

I cant help either I'm afraid, but I'll ask you a question, I too visit a bushcraft forum, and have quite a few bushcraft members living in my surrounding area, as we have the luxury to camp in our own woods, I have often thought about inviting some of them over one weekend, as you say, a work party with camping as the exchange,
but I have not as yet, and in all honesty, probably wont, because on reading posts on that forum about people looking for areas to camp, a lot of replies are left basically saying, if you cant find somewhere with permission, then don't ask, just do it, stealth camping I believe its called?

would inviting bushcrafters open up a big can of worms, would I find that people are visiting and camping without an invite and the location being passed around the bushcraft forums as though it was a call girl at a bachelor party

[oldclaypaws]

I can see a bit of a quandary here. There must be a huge number of people including many on this forum who would really enjoy the primal challenge of a bushcraft course in contrast to the tedium of cosy suburban life. However the wider image of bushcraft, that is to say living 'rough' in the woods almost like an outlaw or tramp, might not endear its practitioners to all private land owners who might consider the activity a bit dodgy or just plain weird. It is a kind of curious activity for what must be one of the tamest countries in the world. I find videos by bushcraft / survival experts doing a review of a machete or hunting bow on youtube rather incongruous with the background shot of their maisonette in Stevenage. My wife would go on such a course provided she could get a good mobile signal to update her blog and find somewhere to plug in the hairdrier.

As a bit of fun I think its great and quite harmless, connecting us with those long forgotten skills our ancestors may have had. As Splodger said, perhaps their are outdoor based organisations like country parks, woodland skill centres, or maybe the Iron Age farm at Butser Hill in Hampshire that would welcome such courses as an addition to their activities? Alternatively, if you could get a number of people to volunteer use of their wood in different parts of the country, you could promote it and invite people to a particular wood for a weekend, then move on to another location next time, as a kind of peripatetic instructor?