Coppice Clearing

As part of our project we worked with Swansea University, the Arts and Humanities departments and Swansea Council to learn about the heritage craft of Coppicing. We watched how they were helping to restore an ancient coppice at the site of the original Hafod-Morfa Copperworks. They had funding from the National lottery for their project. We saw the coppicing of the wood and how they were using it to lay fences around the Liberty Stadium and the Hafod-Morfa Copperworks site.

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We spoke to Malcolm Edwards and saw him working. He is one of the only people left in the country who makes his living by coppicing.  His job is to manage the countryside. He is a countryside management contractor and traditional hedgelayer based near Llandeilo Carmarthenshire. He also sells traditional and bespoke coppice crafts products and teaches heritage skills. He told us coppice working was a heritage craft that used to be done by lots of people a long time ago but now it is only done by a few people like himself. He has been hedge laying since he was a teenager.

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Coppicing is a traditional method of managing a piece of land covered by a wood. The trees we saw being coppiced were hazel trees and we watched the hedges being laid. We learnt that through coppicing, hedge laying also provides a habitat for lots of different wildlife. 

He told us that the young tree stems are cut down almost to the ground so that the shoots that grow back are very thin and straight. This happens over and over again and it gives people a sustainable supply of wood. They can be used for hedge laying, or the wood can be used to weave baskets, At the time of the copperworks the baskets would have been used to carry waste products out of the copperworks, or to make wattle fencing . The hazel wood was also made to produce handles for tools used in the factories and on local farms.

Once Malcolm had separated the stems he started pleaching. Pleaching is when living and dead branches are woven together. To do this he cut down the back of the hazel stem and then used a Bill Hook to bend the stem over until it was nearly resting on the floor. This means that the tree is still alive and so when Autumn comes it will start to grow young shoots and will make a very thick hedge. The hedge layers will return in 5-7 years to repeat it all again.

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Written by Y5A St. Joseph's Cathedral Primary