Coppicing session 1

Oxleas Wood

1 November 2025

Only a month later than planned, we met up at the cafe to get a start on coppicing in the 2025-26 coupe. Most of us had met up only recently for training - we were joined by some of our other regular volunteers, who include both coppicing novices and people who have coppiced extensively at Woodlands Farm and at Scadbury.

This Saturday, November 1st, was mild and sunny - the leaves are just turning and the woods are beautiful in the sunlight. All our bright yellow vests blended in suprisingly well. We tramped down the hill with our barrows of tools and got settled in to our processing area.

So much more work to do!

We had a quick health and safety recap, a less quick recap on what materials we're processing the trees into, and grouped up to get to work. We tried to make sure that inexperienced coppicers and experienced coppicers worked together, and that all groups had someone who had had our recent training - here's hoping that everyone felt informed!

Hard at work!

Hard at work!

Hard at work

Over the morning, our volunteers had some personal landmarks - their first solo tree; their first nice neat bundle of brash. Everyone was mostly good about tidying up as they went. We have quite tidy heaps of stakes, binders and bundled brash all ready for various uses in the woodlands - and a more messy heap or two of material we'll be working into dead hedges on this site. We also have a small pile of much larger material, which we'll be passing on to Thames 21 for their work along the Wogebourne this winter.

Processed hazel is piling up!

Looking over the work area at the end of the session, we can already see how much more light is reaching the leaf litter. We'll see how that translates into different vegetation next year - fingers and toes all crossed!