COPPICING THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY

Dave Dibden is bringing a centuries-old tradition back to life in a corner of Hampshire’s world-famous woodlands.

He is using skills handed down to him through generations of New Forest craftsmen to create a four-hectare copse, in Pondhead Inclosure.

He says nothing can be rushed when you are using 11th Century technology.

But he reckons that once he is done, his hazel shrubs in the Forestry Commission woodland could be providing a renewable source of fuel and materials well into the next century.

Mr. Dibden, said: “I learned coppicing 20 years ago from the old hands who worked in the woods.

“Their skills had been passed down to them through the generations from people who would have tended the forest in medieval times.

“Cutting back the hazel to ground level encourages long slender staves to shoot from the stump. It creates a superb wildlife habitat too.

“My coppice timber will eventually go to make everything from thatching spars and hurdles, to charcoal for barbeques. I’ll be supplying allotment owners with pea and bean sticks too.”

Mr. Dibden said his working year in the inclosure ran from the first leaf fall, in September, to the buds bursting, in March.

He said he was currently cutting the hazel in the disused copse to bring the whole four-hectare site back into production.

He added that eventually the site would be divided into seven sections, each one producing a crop in rotation every seven years.

Funding for the Pondhead Inclosure project is provided by the European Union’s New Forest LEADER+ Programme, and the Forestry Commission.

Anyone wanting information about coppicing and its products should ring 023 8028 3141.

Details can also be found on the www.forestry.gov.uk/newforest website.

NOTES TO EDITORS

For further information please contact Miss Emma Stevens, Communications Manager, on 023 8028 6828.