Green Woodworker
Work freshly felled or coppiced wood using pole lathe, drawknife, shaving horse, and hand tools — making chairs, tool handles, hurdles, and traditional woodland products.
High
Moderate
2–4 years: courses and regular practice to achieve commission-quality production work
No statutory registration; BODGERS/APTGW membership and courses; Green Woodwork workshops at Living Wood or Greenwood Guild; Heritage Craft Association networks; learning by doing with experienced practitioners
typical
What you do
Green woodworkers use freshly cut, unseasoned (green) timber from managed woodland and coppice — typically ash, oak, hazel, sweet chestnut, and cherry — worked with traditional hand tools before the wood dries and hardens. The principal tools are the pole lathe (a human-powered spring-return lathe for spindles, legs, and bobbins), the drawknife and spokeshave on a shaving horse (for shaping staves and legs), the froe and mallet for cleaving billets, and the axe and adze for rough shaping and saddling seats.
Traditional products include Windsor and bodger chairs (turned legs and spindles, carved seats), hoop-backed chairs, tool handles, trug baskets, hay rakes, hazel hurdles, walking sticks, mallets, and wooden spoons and utensils. Contemporary green woodworkers also design original furniture and objects using green construction techniques — the shrinkage and movement of drying green wood is exploited in joint design to tighten chairmaking joints as the wood dries. Many practitioners run woodland workshops and courses as a significant income stream alongside commissions.
The Association of Polelathe Turners and Green Woodworkers (APTGW, informally known as BODGERS) provides the principal professional community. Mike Abbott's Living Wood and the Greenwood Guild provide training centres. The Heritage Craft Association lists pole lathe turning and green woodworking among its critically endangered craft skills. Regular craft markets, country shows, and online selling sustain the direct-to-public market.
Why this career is resilient
Green woodworking is sustained by a combination of heritage craft value, sustainable woodland management (coppicing produces a renewable raw material), and growing consumer interest in handmade objects with demonstrable provenance and low environmental impact. The combination of craft market selling, workshop income, and commissions creates a diversified income base. BODGERS and the Heritage Craft Association's critically endangered status creates cultural and policy support for sustaining the practitioner base. Managed coppice woodland produces a free or low-cost raw material for practitioners with their own land access.
A typical day
Morning: split a freshly felled ash log with a froe and mallet into chair-leg staves; draw each stave to round on the shaving horse using the drawknife, then mount on the pole lathe and turn to the leg profile template — complete four legs and two stretchers for a new Windsor chair. Afternoon: woodland course day — host six students learning pole lathe bowl turning; demonstrate safe set-up, tool presentation, and turning technique, supervise each student through their first turning, and discuss green wood selection and woodland management. End of day: fell and bark a small ash coppice stool for tomorrow's stave stock.
Routes in
Full-time college course
Study full-time at a further education college, usually for 1–2 years. You will need to fund yourself or apply for a student loan (available for Level 4+ courses).
Pay and costs
Earning potential: Part-time green woodworker with craft market and course income: £8,000–£18,000. Full-time with commissions, courses, and craft shows: £20,000–£35,000.
Training costs: Pole lathe (build your own): £100–£300 in materials. Drawknife and spokeshave: £80–£200. Froe and mallet: £60–£120. BODGERS membership: approximately £30/year.