If you are looking for a piece of furniture why not make your own, near Bath? Tim Gatfield was a hardwood cabinet-maker for many years before switching to the art of green woodworking. Green woodworking uses freshly-cut wood and thereby allows the worker to stay very much connected to the tree's environment. Tim's course are the ideal way to learn about this wonderful technique.
I was introduced to Tim last year by a colleague and booked John on his Basic Green Woodwork course for his birthday. John had dabbled with hardwood before [he made me a little table a couple of years ago that had recesses for fossils and buttons and a glass top :0) ] but greenwood was very new to him and the Basic course assumes no experience.
In the two-day course John made a wee seat (left, with my knitting for scale): the legs were made in ash by a pole-lathe, the supports in-between were made with a shave-horse and it had a weaved elm-bark seat. Tim trained John in all the techniques, was on hand for help and helped with the tricky bits...
You could stay in a B&B but John pitched his tent in the woodland for a couple of quid (I joined in the evening and we fell asleep to the owls!). There's a compost loo (look out for the cheeky door-handle), beautiful showers (with an ingeniuous water-heating system), an earth-oven (which will cook your dinner), Tim's amazingly crafted yurts, a small group of like-minded people and lots of fossils to find. In the morning, a few deer wandered by grazing merrily. It was a wonderful experience and worth every penny. Tim and Cherry Wood are a great inspiration and we are extremely lucky to have them so nearby.
There are lots of other courses, from spoon-making to making an earth-oven to family woodland courses but, if you'd rather not commit to a course yet, there's always Volunteer Thursday: help Tim maintain the woodland or help make roof tiles in time for Winter...is there a better way to spend a Thursday?
