Woodland Management at Sallerton Wood

The overall aim of management at Sallerton Wood is to utilize the woodland for traditional woodland crafts in a sustainable way and in a way that enhances the woodland habitats and wildlife of the woodland. Many of the cherished features of our native broadleaved woodlands have been derived by past traditional management practices such as coppicing, pollarding, selective thinning, and the maintenance of woodland rides.

An additional aim is to involve and educate the local community in sustainable woodland management and woodland crafts.
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The main management activities at Sallerton Wood are:

Sensitive maintenance of tracks and pathways for access to the woodland's timber resources and educational areas without causing damage to the woodland habitat.
Construction of temporary shelters within the woodland to accomodate the use of traditional woodland craft equipment such as pole lathes and shaving horses.
Coppicing and thinning to provide small amounts of timber for temporary constructions.
Coppicing and thinning to provide small amounts of green timber for traditional green woodwork products including chairs, stools, hurdles, and smaller objects such as spatulas, and mallets.
The coppicing and thinning will also benefit the field layer plants of the woodland by letting in more light on a cyclical basis to allow the field layer species to increase in vegetative growth and flowering, with a consequential benefit to the invertebrate fauna of the woodland.
Cutting small amounts of timber for firewood. Much of this will be available as off-cuts from the previously-mentioned cropping of timber.
Much of the cut but non-utilizable timber is left on the woodland floor, rather than burned, to provide decaying wood habitats for fungi and invertebrates.
Removal of lower branches and Ivy from some trees. This will only be practised on the most utilizable timber trees, leaving most of the trees to take their natural form and be a host for Ivy and the fauna that depends on or benefits from Ivy.
Planting of trees to replace utilized timber. Only a relatively small amount of planting is necessary for this purpose because the small amounts of timber utilized as described above will easily be replaced by the natural growth and reproduction of the existing woodland.
Planting of trees to enhance the quantities and diversity of native broadleaved species and to provide additional native species for green woodworking. The planting of additional native broadleaved species, such as Wild Cherry and Small-leaved Lime, will increase the biodiversity of the woodland by attracting in the native invertebrate fauna characteristic of those tree species and will also benefit the existing invertebrate fauna by providing additional nectar sources.
Utilization of physical resources within the woodland, such as water, solar, and mineral. Piped spring water is utilized for cooking and washing. Solar electrical energy is used for lighting, recharging of batteries for drills, and pumping water from the spring. Clay dug from wet areas of the woodland is used for making clay ovens, stoves, and other things, and the areas where clay has been dug will provide still-water ponds to complement the moving-water habitat already there in the woodland stream, with consequent benefit to aquatic wildlife.
The management is carried out by Andy & Jane, the owners of the woodland, with the assistance of friends and local community members on a voluntary basis.

The following photos illustrate some aspects of the management work at Sallerton Wood...

Track and path maintenance
Steps constructed on a steep section of path. The steps are reinforced with cleft Chestnut cut from Sallerton Wood.	A newly-refurbished track. Good path and track maintenance gives safe access to woodland areas and confines trampling and vehicular damage to small areas.
Chipping coppice brash for surfacing tracks.	Spreading the chippings.
A boardwalk constructed over marshy ground. This gives access to the woodland work shelter area without damage to the wetland habitat. The boardwalk is constructed from Sallerton Wood Chestnut.
The boardwalk under construction.	A simple log footbridge spanning a small stream.
A gate for the entrance, made at Sallerton Wood from timber extracted and processed there.
Construction of temporary shelters for woodworking areas
Preparing Sallerton Wood Larch for a timber frame using a chainsaw mill.
A temporary woodland shelter made from coppiced Ash poles. The shelter is shown here being used for the preparation of Larch timber for a woodland shelter frame.
Completed Woodland shelter frame with its tarpaulin roof.
Workshop shelters in the green woodworking area.	The framed shelter used for brewing up.
Coppicing for green woodwork and firewood
Coppicing.	A coppice area.
Ivy removed from Ash coppice trees. Ivy is removed from trees suitable for utilization but is left on others.	Stacks of recently-coppiced timber.
Completed bars and rail for making a hurdle. The rails are coppiced Ash and the bars are coppiced hazel.	A stack of drying firewood for a log-burner.
Unutilized timber left on the woodland floor to decay. This provides an imortant habitat for small mammals, fungi, bryophytes (mosses and liverworts), and invertebrates (e.g. snails, slugs, insects and woodlice).	An old fallen, but living, Hornbeam.
Woodland regeneration and new plantings
	Naturally-regenerating Ash seedlings. Many of the tree species at Sallerton Wood will regenerate naturally in more than an adequate way to keep up with utilization, but some species of native broadleaved trees will be planted to diversify the woodland and to provide useful timber species that are under-represented at present.
Wych Elm seedlings.	Newly-planted Wild Cherry tree saplings.
Small-leaved Lime cuttings.	Oak seedlings. These will be pot-grown for a year or two before planting at Sallerton Wood.
Management and utilization of the physical resources
A spring converted into a well.	Spring-water on tap near the woodland workshop.
Kitchen shelter sink with its tap and electric pump.	Solar panel for generating power to drive the water pump that raises spring water to the sink. It also doubles as a shelter for the clay oven.
Naturally-occurring clay in the woodland.	Oven and rocket stoves made from the clay.