Seeing the wood for the trees

There are two pieces of woodland on the family farm. When we were kids i remember there were chalk paths though the woods that you could walk, ride or drive (in a land rover) through.  In a typical "lies to children" move from parents and grandparents - any time a column of steam could be seen rising from the green canopy, we were told there were witches in the woods!  So we were mainly too scared to go in there, but they were a big part of our growing up.

The big wood from above - hazel clearing top left, poplar plantation bottom right - big jumbly jungle everywhere else

Gradually over 30 years priorities have changed on the farm, labour became more expensive and farming has been through some tough times - hence the maintenance has lapsed and the tidy piece of forestry has gradually morphed into the boggy, tangled messy bits of woodland there today. BUT the woods are full of trees - and full of wood! Most of it native varieties of deciduous trees like beech, ash and oak plus a big stand of poplars that dad planted in the sixties which is pretty much ready for the chop now.

There is also a hazel grove in the big wood that used to be coppiced and regularly maintained.  It is predictably very over grown at the moment, but it is there with a little clearing - almost certainly where the witches lived, although possibly where the hazel was worked and even charcoal made.  I'm sure if you know what you're doing it could be brought back into use - hazel seems to be infinitely resilient, and could become a productive source of firewood, and who knows maybe for wattle and daub walls?

It seems to me that there has to be potential here to use materials from the woodlands to build the frame and build and clad the walls of my fantasy house.  I know you can buy timber.  I know you can buy flat packed houses that are built in a factory and shipped in and erected in a day.  But  - in the style of Ben Law's remarkable cruck framed wooden house on Grand Designs (S3 E3), though maybe not quite that extreme, you can build a beautiful building from the materials available around you.  This also appeals to my basic human skills mentality - make it not buy it.

At the moment turning big leafy tree into usable strips of lumber is a bit of a mystery - but how hard can it be we've been doing it for thousands of years - right?!  I've set myself a bit of homework:

• identify the trees in the woodland - and any potential ones in hedgerows
• investigate what is needed to harvest the wood and extract it
• understand how much usable timber comes from each type of tree
• find out if it should be seasoned and how you store it to do that!
• how to coppice hazel

There is a small tree preservation  company in a nearby village, so they might be a good place to start, plus a walk around the wood with dad just to see what is there.  And of course some interweb research!

Plenty to be going on with then!