Coppicing

At the work party last Wednesday 26th March, we did some coppicing in the small copse at the top of the valley path close to post 8. Over the last few months we have spent a lot of time dealing with brambles, steps and dams. Upcoming work will involve keeping the grassy areas and paths tidy as S Glos are not yet able to mow any grass for us. It's not quite the time to start that work yet so we had a day available to do a little bit of coppicing to give us some material for future step repairs.

This is the copse near post 8 where we worked.

And this is one of the hazel stools in the copse. Since the last time we coppiced here the hazels have put on a lot of growth and will give us some poles suitable for step repairs.

Graham is taking out the thicker branches but leaving the thinner ones to put on a bit more growth.

These are some of the branches cut from the hazel stools before being processed.

Here Aiden is trimming them to remove the thin whippy bits and leave a useful pole.

The whippy bits are not wasted though. The thicker ones can be made into stakes which are then driven into the ground every three feet or so as Peter is doing here.

Then the thinner ones are woven between the stakes to make a dead hedge. Graham and Eric are weaving the hedge alongside the scrub area opposite the copse.

We had a bit of a rest then finished ... 

... the dead hedge. A productive morning on a warm spring day.