About | Bulmer Woodcraft

Ash

A native British tree yielding wood that's been used for millennia for furniture-making, tool handles (it's light and strong) and is also, unfortunately, a tree that is susceptible to a disease known as Ash Dieback, which came to the UK in 2012. This means there is a lot of ash timber available at present, but it's not one of the main ones we use because it's best used in fairly large items. A lovely wood though and a great tree for climbing. It also makes brilliant firewood which is a bit unfortunate if you're trying to laser-cut it as it sometimes sets the workshop on fire. Just saying.

Oak

This has got to be the definitive British tree, hasn't it? Oak smells really nice when you're working it – sort of vanilla/buttery although the shavings tend to stain your hands. It's a brilliant timber and you can see why Nelson's ships were made of Oak: it's strong, doesn't tend to twist and warp, and although it's very hard it's not too difficult to work with and finishes rather pleasingly once you give it a wipe with oil. It also doesn't catch fire as easily as some timbers we can mention. We're talking about you, Ash.

Chestnut

Chestnut is one of the odd "it's not a native" "yes it is" ones. It was brought to Britain by the ancient Romans for – well, the chestnuts, obviously – so it's been here for two thousand years, but for some reason that doesn't put it in the "native trees" category, which just seems a bit unfriendly to poor old Chestnut. It's a great timber for anything outdoors: the high tannin content means it doesn't rot for ages, so it's often used for fence posts. We do not sell fence posts. Although we do sometimes use old ones and make earrings out of them. Nice grain, too. And it makes good seed markers.

Holly

It's the palest wood of any tree that grows in the UK and although you'd think Holly was a bush, if you get the right conditions it can make a hefty tree and is sometimes used to make furniture. It's considered bad luck to cut down a Holly tree, which sounds like a myth created by woodcutters who didn't want to have to hack their way through the prickly leaves at the bottom. Holly is great for anything requiring pale smooth timber.

Elm

Elm used to be really common in the UK up to about 1975 when the trees were almost wiped out by Dutch Elm Disease (which, ironically, came from Canada). Nowadays there aren't many left and once they get to about ten metres tall they normally don't make it – which means there's still Elm wood around in small sections. Like the kind of stuff we make.

Pear

Smooth-grained, slightly pink in hue and really hard to find because although there are lots of pear trees in people's gardens, the trees are normally fairly small so nobody ever bothers to fell them and plank them up for timber, they just tend to be made into firewood. That's a real shame (and, weirdly, in Switzerland it's a popular timber. How does that make sense? Their pear trees are the same size as ours, they just like pear wood) but by getting to know a couple of tree surgeons we've been able to get some nice pieces

Plum

If there was going to be a timber that tells you what Bulmer Woodcraft is about, it would be plum. It's really hard to get hold of the wood because plum trees are normally so small, the timber is unstable and it warps and twists like it's doing it on purpose … and the grain is absolutely beautiful, it's tough and resilient, and it takes a wonderful finish when you know how. It's a beautiful thing that nobody else can be bothered with. We love it.

Hawthorn

Hawthorn is a tree you've seen loads of times. It's one of the very first things that comes into leaf in Spring, it's got pretty white blossoms that come out in May so it is traditionally associated with Beltane, the start of May, and it's in almost every hedge you go past in the South-West. Hawthorn is normally a modest bush, but it really wants to be a tree and if given the right conditions it will, although it does it slowly. Hawthorns live for hundreds of years – and if left alone as a "fairy tree", or passage to the Otherworld, they can go on for far longer. It's considered very bad luck to cut down a fully-grown Hawthorn tree, but trust us, we didn't - we are just using bits from where they had to be trimmed. It's a creamy, smooth-grained and very tough timber that also likes to warp and twist like a propellor blade as it dries out, but it really has something about it.

Lignum Vitae

This is an odd one. It's the national tree of Jamaica, it doesn't grow in the UK, it's actually an endangered species… what on earth are we doing selling items made from Lignum Vitae? Well, remember what this company is about – we want to make items from things that people were going to throw away. All the uses of Lignum Vitae (it's super-hard, rotproof, is incredibly dense, it's amazing for pulleys and nautical uses) are superseded now… including the source of the wood we use, which is old lawns bowling balls. Nobody uses wooden balls any more for bowling, so there are loads out there being thrown away. The wood is too good to waste, so we take old bowling balls, slice them thinly, and use the wood to make things. We think that's ok.

Christmas tree

About 8 million Christmas trees are grown in the UK each year – we think this is OK as it's a crop like cabbages – but it's nice to give some of the wood an extra lease of life and hopefully it's not too meta to have a Christmas ornament made from a slice of Christmas tree, hanging on a Christmas tree. Anyway, it does make a good Christmas ornament.