Take a seat on a log, rest your festival-weary feet, and we’ll brew you a refreshing cup of wild tea while you watch a demonstration of bodging or basketmaking. Perhaps you’d like to have a go yourself, or whittle a whistle while you listen to some tree tales.
Don’t miss the chance to meet some of Scotland’s finest makers of furniture and other beautiful, useful items, some using wood harvested within a mile of where you’re standing. Handle samples of Scottish wood and maybe you’ll be inspired to commission something for your home or hone your own woodworking skills. Ask a member of the Association of Scottish Hardwood Suppliers (ASHS) for some advice, or check out the Scottish Ecological Design Association (SEDA) display and talks programme.
Would you like to know more about the Forest of Falkland? After all, this shieling is really just a big clearing in the forest! Take a guided walk with one of our foresters and find out about the ways tree management is changing here, as we develop the Forest of Falkland as a place for living, working and learning woodland – good for landscape and biodiversity as well as people. Have a chat with our woodland ranger about conservation volunteering and training courses that happen throughout the year at the Centre for Stewardship, and sample some Forest School and bushcraft activities. Visit the Forestry Commission to find out more about what’s happening in forestry across Scotland.
Wondering about woodfuel? Visit the woodlot to get expert advice on choosing a stove, finding a supplier and storing your wood. 2012 will be remembered as the Year of the Storm in the Forest of Falkland, with thousands of windblown trees, and we’ll soon be starting to supply woodfuel locally. Take a look at what else we’re doing with this windfall: uniquely designed huts and composting toilets. The Centre for Stewardship, organisers of The Big Tent, are supporting Reforesting Scotland’s campaign for A Thousand Huts – come and find more about this rapidly growing movement and other RS projects. Maybe you have happy memories of building dens as a kid? Here’s a chance to have a go at creating one, whatever your age!
If you need advice on managing the trees in your garden, visit the Tree Doctor in his surgery; you might enjoy a demonstration of tree climbing too! Perhaps you’re keen to grow some trees yourself, or find about wild harvesting? Have some fruity conversations as you wander round our forest garden and pocket orchard. Members of Scottish Wild Harvests Association are here to tell you all about foraging, with some wild food cookery demonstrations and free tastings too. Don’t miss the launch of a fascinating new book - A Handbook of Scotland's Wild Harvests.
If you were standing right here a couple of hundred years ago, you’d witness the last days of Nuthill House before it was demolished and replaced by the House of Falkland across the park. Take a stroll through the imagined rooms of Nuthill. In the Dining Room you can the kind of furniture that might have been here, and how designs, often using local wood, have evolved over the centuries. Take a seat in the Sewing Room and try your hand at traditional crafts using skills on which every household once depended.
The wood zone is supported by the Forestry Commission Scotland.
