Our eco-friendly products:
Traditionally managed woodlands can produce all sorts of good things.
Lots of barbecue enthusiasts have discovered that charcoal made from native broadleaved trees lights more easily and burns hotter than stuff made from fast grown conifers or tropical trees, and plenty of delicious Herefordshire food is now cooked over charcoal made from the lop and top from Ast and other Herefordshire woodlands - bagged into stout paper sacks, and sold locally as "Herefordshire Charcoal". Quantities of cut and dried logs are also sold for open fires.
Meanwhile the poles arising from the coppiced hazel are used as hedging stakes and ethers to weave along the tops of newly laid hedges; or split and woven into hurdles and garden features that people ask for ; while the chestnut is used for a variety of fencing material to suit different requirements - sawn into gates, used in the round, cleft into rails. Some things originating in Ast Wood even went to show off in a garden at the Chelsea Flower Show.
As for the oak, just as in the past, it has all manner of uses, some has been used in restoration work, for example to re-clad the oak frames of local historic buildings, some is turned by a local joinery firm into oak window frames which will last lifetimes longer than softwood ones, some is cleft into woven oak panels which are much chunkier than hazel ones, and with a wonderfully long life.