New Natives: making the move from demand led to supply led forestry in Devon

Prototype door – this and all other photos by Alice Carfrae/Evolving Forests

With Climate Change bringing more complex and different forestry management needs, changes in timber production are also rising up the agenda. A Devon research collaboration between the Woodland Trust and Evolving Forests has resulted in the testing and prototyping of a variety of materials from non-traditional native Devon species: Beech, Alder and Western Hemlock, a first step in broadening the potential source of timbers, as Jez Ralph outlines.

We live in a world of demand-led economics, or at least that’s what we are led to believe as we purchase our next new toy.  Whilst much of this filter’s down to the crude-oil we pump out of the ground, there is a large element of the economy that filters down to the growing of crops, both food and material. This Bio-economy too has become demand led.  As foresters we have become used to growing for pulp & paper that demand a suite of very specific properties; for engineered timber that demand a very specific set of properties for efficient production. We have got used to growing homogenous crops to feed homogenous products.  We do this through a way of growing rooted in imposing order on a landscape to generate efficiency. 

There is an argument that in a world of changing climate, changing social attitudes, and changing economics this demand-led way of growing needs to change. The need for soil-health, for ecological balance, for resilience in the face of rapid climate change changes the ethical framework of silviculture and of woodland management.  If we are to grow forests that have their future health at heart, we may need to put aside our present needs and develop a new approach that puts a more symbiotic relationship with the forest first, that changes the paradigm to a supply-led, material focused design approach.

Tucked down in the Southwest of England, well away from policy makers and big business a quiet evolution has begun that explores this paradigm shift.  Born out of the forestry innovation in the area over the past 100 years and the seeming concentration of passionate innovators, supply-led design is becoming more focused, more real.

Much of this new approach comes out of the incredible complexity of Devon’s woodland.  From remnant ancient woodland through to diverse farm woodlands planted under Silvanus and South West Forest in the late 1990s. Large scale monolithic upland plantation and diverse mixtures planted historically by lowland private estates. As more silviculturists and owners move to more complex forms of forestry that mix species and structural diversity to create healthy soils and ecologically resilient woodland, so the amount of homogenous single-species forest will decrease. Owners turn towards quality rather than commodity volume production. Quality in ecology and quality in timber. Devon could be said to represent the way our material growing is going nationally and internationally.  It is no longer feasible to grow to demand but a necessity to grow what will enable the forest to survive and thrive.

Much of this new approach comes out of the incredible complexity of Devon’s woodland.  From remnant ancient woodland through to diverse farm woodlands planted under Silvanus and South West Forest in the late 1990s. Large scale monolithic upland plantation and diverse mixtures planted historically by lowland private estates. As more silviculturists and owners move to more complex forms of forestry that mix species and structural diversity to create healthy soils and ecologically resilient woodland, so the amount of homogenous single-species forest will decrease. Owners turn towards quality rather than commodity volume production. Quality in ecology and quality in timber. Devon could be said to represent the way our material growing is going nationally and internationally.  It is no longer feasible to grow to demand but a necessity to grow what will enable the forest to survive and thrive.

Test materials – Beech, and below, Alder and Western Hemlock

This changing attitude has allowed the Woodland Trust to come into the world of timber in Devon.  Traditionally focused on ecology, conservation, health and wellbeing, the Woodland Trust own a broad range of woodlands all of which need management, many of which need some material extraction to bring them into better management.  They have resources of beech which they have few markets for and whose heavy shading may not be considered ecologically optimal.  Beech which is threatened by increasing periods of drought. Western Hemlock which naturally regenerates so freely it out competes not just other trees species but also herb layers so vital to soil health.  Alder which many are planting as Ash replacement as ash has succumbed to disease that proliferates in our milder winters.

Alongside the Forestry Commission and a suite of local businesses the aim has been to explore how a mix of often ignored species can be used within design and construction. To understand how workable a diverse material palette can be within a new supply-led, ecologically-focused supply-chain.

Key to this has been working with Dave Rickwood at the Woodland Trust who manages much of the Devon holdings for the Trust, working alongside Evolving Forests, who specialise in supply-chain innovation and promotion of a wood culture.  Both organisations have evolved from the intensity of forest innovation in Devon in the past century along with the likes of the Carpenter Oak, Hooke Park and, latterly, the WoodLabFurther: see WoodLab feature here (link to B1) – and Xylotek, all operating in South West England pushing the boundaries of a wood using culture.

Tom Bedford, second-generation sawmiller, now runs UK Hardwoods in mid Devon – Further see Devon’s new timber culture here (link to B3).  One of the new breed of young sawmillers that have taken the responsibility of the remaining family-run mills that survived decades of depressed timber prices across the UK. Like many of the remaining hardwood mills they have focused on enhancing their product range. For them, adding kiln drying has enabled them to provide into the demanding flooring and internal joinery markets.  Being young and entrepreneurial and local to Dartmoor enabled UK hardwoods to cope with the demands of trialing under utilised species, the unknowns of how the timber will react in the saw and the kiln. 








Timber was also sent on to Bowden and Tucker joiners in Ashburton for joinery manufacture into casement windows and doors. Bowden and Tucker were selected for being interested in using more locally derived timber having undertaken some work with beech and local softwood and who produce regular volumes of windows, doors and staircases.  It was important that the joinery came from a site used to using more regular imported softwood and heartwood to give a comparison.

A full suite of test building products including structural and joinery items has now been developed with the timber not leaving a 25km radius of its source.  This has been enabled by having small businesses that can provide flexibility, are naturally able to innovate responsively and could work with a diverse suite of species. It has enabled timber that has come from ecologically focused management at the Woodland Trust to enter the timber construction supply chain.


From the kiln the beech, hemlock and alder have been fabricated into flooring and cladding samples or sent on for further manufacturing.  Kiln Dried timber in all species was sent a few kilometers down the road to the UKs only glulamination facility, Buckland Timber in Crediton. Buckland Timber began life in 2012 as a vertically integrated timber manufacturing company developed by the Nicholson family who own forest land in Devon and forest manager Bill Blight.  Purchasing second-hand finger-jointing and lamination presses was a brave move for a group of owners with no previous experience in construction or timber manufacturing, in a country with few examples of vertical integration in forestry.  The business now focuses on laminating non-standard beams and, increasingly, UK grown timber with experience of larch, Douglas fir, beech and ash structural beams.






Buckland Timber putting the glue in glulam

Buckland Timber – and below

Though our thirst for timber will demand larger volumes of timber, it is likely that that will come from a greater variety of species. If there is an ethical imperative on foresters to work in a closer balance with the land, there is a similar imperative on designers and fabricators to understand timber better.  Treat it not as a standardised material but accept the richness of variety. Idealised? Yes. necessary? Yes.  Forests will become more diverse and we must find a middle way where foresters understand end-uses better to grow material we know will have desirable properties and users understand the reasons why the necessary complexity of silviculture gives rise to a complexity of material.

Jez Ralph has been working at the intersection of forestry and timber construction for 20 years. Via the Silvanus Trust and the Architectural Association, he went on to found Evolving Forests in 2019 to focus on resilient supply chains and a renaissance in wood culture in the UK

Further – Evolving Forests
The Woodland Trust