11:28am Monday 15th February 2010
By Mike Pryce
GREEN woodworking was once one of the most familiar rural crafts across Worcestershire and Herefordshire. In the Middle Ages the area’s woods and coppices were full of deft practitioners turning freshly felled timber into a great variety of useful objects from hay rakes to rolling pins.
Now this ancient skill has been featured in a new BBC television series, but involving pieces of wood on a rather larger scale.
Because the first episode of Mastercraft, fronted by Monty Don on BBC2 last night, visited Hereford Cathedral, where three novices were taught how to work on the huge beams being used in the restoration of the cathedral barn, a structure dating back to the 13th-century.
Over the next five weeks, the programme will cover other ancient arts such as metal work, thatching, stone masonry, weaving and stained glass, all in different parts of the UK.
The decision to feature the Hereford barn for green woodworking was particularly apt, since this neck of the woods was once a hotbed. Indeed, the area still has woodworkers who do things the traditional way, such as Gudren Leitz, who teaches the whole range of greenwood skills from pole lathe turning to chairmaking at her home near Bosbury.
With its earliest parts dating from the 1200s, Hereford Cathedral barn is one of the most significant early buildings in the city and is at the heart of a £5 million Heritage Lottery supported project to restore Hereford Cathedral Close. The conservation of the barn brings it back into use as a vital educational facility for the cathedral and removes it from the English Heritage At Risk register, which is jointly funding the work.
Although Hereford Cathedral archives hold records dating from the early Middle Ages, there is little firm evidence of the history and usage of the barn, which appears to have been used both as a domestic dwelling and for storage.
Dominic Harbour, head of communications at Hereford Cathedral, said: “The barn project has been full of surprises with such evidence as we have indicating a long and varied past. It has been and it is an incredibly significant building with intriguing beginnings.
“Tree ring analysis carried out on the structural timbers by Dr Ian Tyers of Sheffield University, identify them all as oak with a single elm tie beam.
Four samples were dated to the period 1111-1253, with a felling date of 1253- 88 and, as green timber was usually used, the construction date probably falls within this range.”
Cathedral architect Robert Kilgour said: “Materials for the conservation of the building are being sourced locally, with oak procured from Herefordshire and Powys. The trusses have been repaired using traditional repair techniques and utilise tabled scarf joints and under-squinted half lap joints that can be found in the original mediaeval craftsmanship. Riven green oak wattles and staves make up a large number of infill panels on the south elevation and use a traditional local daub mix comprising cow dung, straw, lime, lime dust and sharp sand.”
At its peak the green wood industry employed more than 20,000 labourers and “bodgers”
camps were a familiar sight in Midlands forests. Bodgers were the men who turned the parts for the production of chairs, carving the wood on site.
The single most important process in green woodwork is an operation known as cleaving. To cleave a log is to prise apart its fibres while the wood is still fresh.
Cleft wood therefore follows the flow of the fibres, maintaining a flexible, springlike quality. Cleft wood compared to planked wood is like spring-steel compared to cast iron.
After cleaving, the wood can then be shaped further. This is carried out using sharp hand tools together with age-old devices called shaving-horses and pole-lathes. Some items such as rolling pins, babyrattles or spoons will be completely finished after these processes. Other products, such as hay rakes or chairs, are made of several shaped components. Being much smaller than a log or a plank, these components can now be dried in a matter of days. Any shrinking and warping takes place before the finished product is assembled.
Working with hand tools in this way is more labour intensive than using machinery, but it gives a far greater sensitivity to the material and ensures the green woodworker uses only the right wood for the job. Where a machine could force its way through a large knot, the green woodworker throws such defects on to the firewood pile.
Finally, from green wood working comes the saying: “Going with the grain”. An old adage from an ancient country craft.
● Mastercraft is on BBC2 Fridays at 9pm.
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