“So, you just need to hold the hazel branch and then pull the blade down firmly, and make sure you don’t take your fingers off!”
To give you some context, I was at Butser Ancient Farm for the official opening of the Hazel Centre – a stunning oak-framed building designed to support volunteering and workshops at this historic site. There I met Darren Hammerton, a veteran in the world of coppicing, with over 30 years of experience under his many-tooled belt.
Coppicing is a Bronze Age woodland management technique which improves the biodiversity in ancient woodland by opening it up to the sunlight and allowing plants, trees and wildlife to flourish. Darren spends his time managing woodland in Droxford where hazel is particularly abundant and requires thoughtful care to ensure it gets the light it needs to thrive. Darren is also a master of traditional hazel fencing – a skill he attempted (with limited success in my case!) to pass onto me during our time at Butser.
Watching Darren at work got me thinking about other exceptional craftspeople and enterprises in East Hampshire who are keeping traditional skills alive. For a relatively small area, we do punch above our weight when it comes to heritage crafts.
Take, for example, the Edward Barnsley workshop near Petersfield, renowned for its beautiful hand carved wooden furniture. Their commissions can be found in places like Canterbury Cathedral, Magdalen College in Oxford and even in the Department for Education – where I had the privilege of using one of their desks during my time as Education Secretary.
Then there’s the Morris Singer Art Foundry in Lasham, whose remarkable work includes the sculptures at the base of the two lamps at the entrance to New Palace Yard, installed for the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. I always smile when passing the Lion of England, Unicorn of Scotland, Dragon of Wales and Elk of Northern Ireland – all cast in Bronze and standing proudly – and always take the opportunity to point them out to visitors. Most recently, the same team also cast the Jane Austen sculpture now gracing the Assembly Room gardens in Alton.
Through my work on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, we’ve recently conducted an inquiry into protecting the UK’s built heritage. One issue that kept cropping up during our evidence sessions was the shortage of skilled craftspeople in this country, and the serious risk this poses to some of our ancient crafts.
Efforts like the ‘Red List of Endangered Crafts’ have highlighted just how many heritage skills are at risk of vanishing altogether. Brexit and the pandemic have only made things harder, creating challenging conditions for small, specialist businesses to survive.
While organisations like Historic England run heritage building skills programmes, it’s clear that more needs to be done to attract people into this incredibly skilled, rewarding and often underappreciated career path.
Learning these traditional skills to whatever level is a unique and grounding experience. And it keeps alive key crafts that are part of our living heritage and cultural identity (and is one of the things that makes the UK so special).
So, here’s to Darren, and to everyone working to keep these ancient skills alive in East Hampshire and beyond.
Video courtesy of Josh Byford at East Hampshire District Council.
