About Me
Hello and welcome to my Blog-Site, I hope you will find it useful. The site is fronted by my blog, but in these pages you will find more about me, the work I do and the crafts that interest me.
I am Mark Allery, Pole-lathe turner, greenwood worker and woodsman living and working in and around Lynchmere, on the border of West Sussex and Hampshire between Haslemere and Liphook.
In addition to my polelathe and greenwood work I also help to manage the Lynchmere commons, a mosaic of woodland and lowland heath where I carry out a range of woody and heathy activities to help maintain and improve the environment on the commons. I am always interested in old tools and rural crafts not just those related to the woods and woodworking. To help prevent me getting bored I use and maintain a fleet of old landrovers and a vintage tractor to assist me in my work. And I have an interest in a wide range of old crafts and skills, particularly those associated with brewing and preserving.
Before I go on – this page also now links to
- Mechanical Mayhem for updates on my various ancient vehicles
- Old Posts from Blogspot Site for an archive of posts slowly being transferred across from my original Blogspot site
Pole-lathe
For most of the year turning wood on a pole-lathe is my primary activity. Though I have a lathe in my workshop shed I also have a couple of lightweight lathes that I use for demonstrating at shows and events. Through the season I spend a lot of time demonstrating pole-lathe and greenwood working at shows particularly at the Weald & Downland Museum near Chichester where I am the demonstrator. As a self employed turner I earn part of my living from demonstrating fees and also from selling the products I make.
Greenwood & Coppice Crafts
I also make traditional birch brooms known as ‘besoms’ or more likely these days as ‘Harry Potter brooms’, a range of traditional coppice products such as pea-sticks and bean poles, and I also make traditional wooden hay rakes. A lot of these products are made using wood which is otherwise regarded as waste in modern forestry, a good example of this is the charcoal I make on the commons, largely from wood which would otherwise have been burned, chipped or left to rot.
Woodsman
Managing a mixed woodland involves using a lot of woodland skills, I may have to deal with dead or diseased trees, windblown or broken trees, scrub invading areas of open heath or planting new trees to replace those that have been felled. Most of the work is not with the biggest timber trees but in thinning smaller trees or coppicing, that is the cutting of regrowth, on a regular cycle. A job that used to be referred to as an ‘underwoodsman’ and a very skillful craft when mastered in identifying and using all the parts of every tree, very little is truely waste. I find this fascinating and enjoy working through the seasons in the woods, though I use a modern chainsaw I also tend to use a lot of old handtools, especially billhooks, and of course my vintage landrovers and tractor.
Landrovers
When I started working in the woods a few years ago it seemed natural to combine it with my interest in old landrovers. Whereas most sensible people would go out and buy a newer landrover I am hanging on to my trusty old Series II landrovers, and indeed appear to have been expanding the collection recently. I am, it appears, the battersea dogs home of old landrovers. The theory is that by the time they are 40 years old everything has been replaced anyway so they should be quite reliable. In practice this seems to be have become a bit of a quest for the perfect but practical old Landrover. The second part of the theory is that if you have enough of them, at least one will always be working. I am still working to discover how to manage these theories in the real world, but I contend that my old landrovers are very green and sustainable with a low carbon footprint. After all they rarely go anywhere so my mileage is reduced, many of the parts are reused, and the vehicles are truely recycled rather than remanufactured.
This page has the following sub pages.
Hello Mark,
you may (I hope) remember me from the good old under-funded SWGHP! I was Heaths Project Officer with Rob Free and Kath/Maggie/Paul in my former life.
Good blog, glad you are still on the heaths. I live on Wickham Common (Meon Valley, Hants) now with my partner and kids and now our youngest is 21months I should have a bit more time to do outdoorsy things again (as well as being house-husband).
Plan to build a shave horse, pole lathe etc and use materials on site for sustainable craft, possible business. Any tips greatfully received. will read blog tomorrow as late here and just got in from art group, silk screen painting tonight!
Seems like birch is looking after you now, repaying the debt!
Toby
Hi Toby,
good to hear from you. The Meon valley is not that far away, so feel free to come over some time if you’d like to, the coffee is always on and I cam put you to work shaving some blanks. Good luck with the shave horse and lathe – let me know if there is anything you need and I will help if I can.
me shaving blanks? that’s just a rumour :o)
will have to wait a few weeks as busy at mo but would love to.
Any Chestnut coppice on Lynchmere Commons lands?
Hi
We met yesterday at Cranbourne HCG day and went collecting ash and elm wityh Pete J.
Like yoyr blog!
Have a few pics of my Landrover before the ‘ex’ had it collected for scrap!.
Nick
Hello Mark,
Was wondering – I want to make a drawknife bench, do you have any instructions or designs you can send me a link to? I might just copy the one at college just from a photo but thought i’d see if you had any instructions like you did for a pole lathe…my dad has managed to track down an electric wood turner at a boot sale for 10 quid so although its no pole lathe its still my own little machine! Hence the need for a draw knife bench…
Cheers!
Catherine
Catherine,
if by the description you mean what I only know as a “shave horse”, this is one of the more useful sites that google threw out when I put in ” shave horse plan ” a while ago when i was looking for one…
http://trod.org/projects/woodworking/
hope this helps.
Toby
Ta Tony1 it looks very useful!
oops beg your pardon – i mean Toby!
Mark,
I just added your blog to my site at UnpluggedShop.com. It will take your RSS feed and display your new headlines (takes about 2 hours) so my readers can click on over to your site and read the article.
Let me know if you ever have any questions or comments.
Thanks,
Luke
Thanks for the course on Monday. I’ve looked up and located the Bodger’s Muddle (not the Google alternative….). Will continue to ponder the best solution for my truck! Could I have your e-mail address?
Katie
Hi Katie,
good to hear from you. I didn’t realise that my profile did not show the email address – I’ve fixed this now. I will email you shortly.
woodland.antics@virgin.net
For some information on how to sell your woodland wares, look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSG2pD-2O2g
Max
Hello, AllanSage gave me your contact details when I was on one of his courses. I asked him about braken and heather control, he said you would be good to talk to. I see you do scythe teaching and I would like to learn this as my Bees dont like the strimmer sound around them. Are yiu doing a teaching day soon on this?
Do you do ‘consultancy’? I would like to walk my bit of woodland with someone who knows what he is looking at and review what I have done and work outwhere I should go now .
Mary
Thought you might like to see this which has just been posted on You tube.
Thanks for that – I’d not seen it before and I like it a lot. The team races were very good natured and I think I learnt more from them than the singles. Good way to warm up in the cold weather,
cheers
Mark
Hi Mark
Hope you’re well.
Thought you might care to have a look at:
http://crtinsurrey.org.uk/
Scroll down and have a look at the charcoal kiln I have been helping to make. I’m planning to have the inaugural burn later this week.
Regards
Conway
PS. Did I tell you I got my felling ticket last year?
Hi Mark, I bought quite a few wooden coasters from the Bentley woodfair yesterday. Do you have any more I could buy mail order and send a cheque or something? Or I live in Lewes if you’re nearby anytime…many thanks, Stella Homewood.
Hi Mark,
Nice meeting you
the other day at the fringe
festival and good to see someone
bringing the old skill’s to the present.
Was a pleasure to watch.
Glad my minions could be of assistance
to help you load up 😉
Luke the security guy.
Hi Mark
Simon from SMB guitars here. Bumped into you a few times at various shows and on the common.
I’m looking for a workshop area somewhere in the parish as the guitar making business is going REALLY well. Just contacting you to see if you know of anywhere on the common or in the parish. If you know of anywhere, you can contact me at info@smbguitars.com
Great blog BTW. Wanting to get my hands on some local timbers again for some interesting guitars
Speak soon
Si
Hi Mark, Can I say again how much I enjoyed the pole lathe course at Weald and Downland on Saturday 31/08/13. I am so proud of myself of what I was able to achieve on this course (honey spoon & divot) to what I did on the same course in 2011. I would be grateful if you could forward me the photos you kindly took of me to neildavis1@gmail.com.
I am looking for space to locate my pole lathe in my workshop garage.
Many thanks again Mark for a wonderful day
Neil
Hi Mark,
Do you teach besom broom making or know of anyone who does?
Mark – thoroughly enjoyed the pole-lathing course at SWDM on 26 April 14 – you mentioned about bowl carving. Do you run such a course?
Hi Mark
I saw your article on the wild service tree from a few years ago.
Do you have any wood turned items left for sale at all as I would be interested?
Thanks,
Nick
Hi Mark
George Humphrey retired as superintendent of Richmond Park
In 1956
Paul