The Friends of Old Park Wood

Woodland management event

The event was held on Sunday 15^th March, when both a portable wood saw and team of horses were in Old Park Wood, to demonstrate low impact extraction and the commercial potential for sawn oak timber.  Following advice to individual woodlot owners from Kent Wildlife Trust (see below), it was decided to focus the event in Rustle Wood. In this woodlot there are dense areas of mature standard oaks, requiring thinning to allow light to reach the woodland floor to promote flora, and to foster better quality timber in the remaining standards.  The arborist was commissioned with the grant funding to spend 3 days in total in Rustle Wood, using two on selective-felling of a number of the oak standard and the third day (day of the event) to extract the timber using a horse team to a waiting woodmizer and experienced operator. 

Invitations to the Sunday event were circulated widely in advance, amongst owners and other groups including the headteacher of the local primary school, and over the course of the day some 50 people attended. Lunch was provided for visitors, and there were many opportunities for owners and others to meet and talk about the day’s activities.  A demonstration of pole lathe turning by one of the owners was put on for visitors too. The day was extremely valuable in providing an opportunity for networking and building a stronger partnership between the owners and with organisations such as Kent High Weald Project and Kent Wildlife Trust. It was also particularly useful in providing a very practical demonstration of how value can be added to timber through processing, following the sequence through from felling to sawing into planks and posts, to stacking for drying and pricing.

An issue for many individual owners is how best to extract timber without causing damage and this was demonstrated very effectively by the horse team. The potential for owners to work together to reap a commercial return from their individual woodlands without compromising them for wildlife was perhaps the biggest learning point of this valuable day.

Frankie Woodgate, arborist, and her horses carefully take the cut standard oaks to the woodmizer		Going for more oak
The standard oaks in Rustle wood were quite dense, so lots of wood mizing to be done		Logs to the woodmizer
Woodmizing		Shiny new oak planks!
Lots of hard work means a pause for a good Horse-loggers Lunch and opportunities for discussion		…and the horses get a rest too
Hire of horse-drawn timber extraction team and specialist felling expertise: Sylvan Environmental Enterprises Ltd. = £900 Hire of sawmill (woodmizer) and operator: 1 day = £414

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