Rebecca Oaks

Coppicing is an ancient method of enhancing woodland biodivesity, and coppice woodlands are to be found all over Britain and parts of Europe. The key to successful coppicing is to nurture the new coppice shoots. In return, a coppice will provide an endless supply of wood for a wide range of articles and the authors present detailed instruction on how to produce many kinds of woodland products from besom brooms, firewood and charcoal to more challenging items such as hazel hurdles and coracles.

Making Charcoal and Biochar - this comprehensive guide is written with the interested amateur in mind, with the certainty that anyone who has a go at making charcoal will soon get the bug. Before you know it, you will be upgrading to a shiny new retort and there will be no looking back! This book gives a wide range of possibilities for making charcoal on a small scale and for commercial production. There are chapters on the heritage skills of earth burns, the enduring popularity of metal kilns and the future represented by the charcoal retort. Biochar - or small particle charcoal - has been heralded as an ancient but rediscovered 'super substance' that can increase soil fertility and productivity whilst locking up carbon into the ground. This book looks at the ongoing discussion and weighs up the evidence. It concludes with a celebration of the myriad ways in which charcoal can be put to use.

Britain has a long and rich tradition of woodcrafts and what, since about the 1970s, have been called the 'greenwood crafts'. Greenwood crafts focus on using wood that contains sap and that is easy to work with simple hand tools to produce beautiful and useful products.