Ancient skills combined with sustainable forestry

Green Woodworking and Coppicing Courses

What is Green Woodwork and Coppicing

Green Woodwork is crafting items from freshly cut, unseasoned wood (high moisture), making it softer and easier to shape with hand tools. It relies on traditional hand tools like axes, adzes, spokeshaves, and pole lathes (foot-powered). Don’t worry if you’re not sure what those are – you’ll find out during a course!

Coppicing is a woodland management method where trees are cut near ground level (the “stool”), allowing new shoots to sprout from the base. Trees like hazel, sweet chestnut, ash, and willow are cut back every few years (depending on species) to produce many thin, straight poles.

Green woodworking heavily relies on the material produced by coppicing, creating a harmonious system where sustainable woodland management (coppicing) provides the raw, versatile material (green wood) for traditional crafts and natural building

Upcoming course dates

Course	Date
Introduction to Coppicing and Greenwood Crafts – 2-days	February 21st – 22nd, 9:30am – 4pm Phillips Park, Prestwich & Tod College, Todmorden
Build your own Rustic Stool – 1-day	March 28th, 9:30am – 4pm Tod College, Todmorden
Introduction to Greenwood Crafts: Treen – 1-day	April 25th, 9:30am – 4pm Tod College, Todmorden
Build your own Hazel Panel – 1-day	May 30th, 9:30am – 4pm Tod College, Todmorden
Can’t make these dates but still interested?	Leave an expression of interest here!

Course formats

Introduction to Coppicing and Greenwood Crafts – 2 days

Day 1 in the woodland covers all aspects of coppicing. Participants will be shown how to handcut a coppice with saws and loppers before dressing out products with a bill hook. Good outdoor clothing is needed for this day along with waterproofs.
Day 2 in the workshop. Using traditional techniques participants will make a range of products out of coppiced woods. These will include spatulas, flowers, plant labels, buttons and mauls.

Solidarity: £250.00 | Standard: £200.00 | Subsidised: £150.00

Introduction to Greenwood Crafts: Treen – 1 day

This one or two day course is a good introduction to greenwood crafts.
Using traditional techniques participants will make a range of products out of coppiced woods. These will include spatulas, flowers, plant labels, buttons and mauls. During the course participants will learn how to split wood with a froe and then using a drawknife on a shave horse make items to take away with them.

Solidarity: £130.00 | Standard: £100.00 | Subsidised: £70.00

Rustic Stool – 1 day

Create your very own stool to take away with you. This one day course involves cleaving a greenwood log then using the drawknife to shape the legs. A scotch eye auger is used to make the mortises and an oak wedge used to secure the tenon. The top of the stool can be shaped with a scorp.

Solidarity: £150.00 | Standard: £120.00 | Subsidised: £90.00

Hazel panels – 1 day

First the participants will cleave out the top and bottom of the panel with a froe. This is then drilled with a brace and bit so a frame can be made with hazel uprights. The panel is then woven with hazel and secured finally with nails.

Solidarity: £150.00 | Standard: £120.00 | Subsidised: £90.00

Cleft Border Hurdle – 1 day

This hurdle is a smaller version of a traditional gate hurdle.
Using coppiced greenwood participants will cleave out the components needed to make the hurdle with a froe. They will shape the cleft wood on a shave horse with a drawknife. A bit a brace is used to make the mortises and components fitted together and nailed.

Solidarity: £150.00 | Standard: £120.00 | Subsidised: £90.00

Introduction to Coppicing – 1 day

This course is woodland based and covers all aspects of coppicing. We will begin the day walking around a hazel coppice and covering topics such as planting/establishing a coppice, how to maintain a coppice, protection of the coppice and coppice products/ markets.
Participants will be shown how to handcut a coppice with saws and loppers before dressing out products with a bill hook.
Good outdoor clothing is needed for this day along with waterproofs.

Solidarity: £130.00 | Standard: £100.00 | Subsidised: £70.00

The course fee covers all teaching, materials, handouts and contributes to venue hire.

We endeavour to make our courses and events affordable to all. Subsidised places are limited and are intended for those who truly cannot afford the standard rate. We don’t ask for any proof, but ask that you use your judgement when purchasing. Similarly, with the sponsored rate – if your place is being covered by your employer, we ask that you play a higher rate to provide access to those who need.

See full Terms and Conditions here.

Who are these courses for?

These courses welcome folks of all abilities, and our training sites are renowned for attracting wonderful, welcoming people, so you’ll feel at home on this course no matter whether you’re a beginner or an experienced craftsperson.

Self-builders, designers, engineers, and builders are some of the people we’ve taught before – alongside pretty much any other background you can think of. Career changers, enthusiasts, artists and absolute beginners.

Meet your teacher: Natasha Twigg

With over 25 years of professional experience in arboriculture and woodland management, Natasha Twigg is a leading figure in the UK coppicing community. Her career began at Askham Bryan College, followed by a three-year apprenticeship with the Bill Hogarth Memorial Apprenticeship Trust (BHMAT) – a foundation that led her to establish her own business, Greenwood Twiggs, in the North West.

For the last two decades, Natasha has managed the same hazel woodlands on a seven-year rotation. Having recut most of these woods two or three times, she has a practical, long-term understanding of how to balance productive timber with thriving wildlife habitats.

As the current Chair of BHMAT, Natasha is deeply committed to training the next generation of woodland workers. She brings this wealth of hands-on experience to her courses, ensuring traditional crafts remain a living, viable skill for the future.

Upcoming dates

If there are no dates listed below, or you are unavailable, please fill in an expression of interest here.

Book a private course

All of these course formats are available for groups up to 6. Drop us an email to discuss your needs and potential dates: hello@schoolofnaturalbuilding.co.uk
Perfect for community groups, students or friends getting together to explore ancestral skills.

Get in touch

Frequently Asked Questions

What is included in the course cost?

Our prices include tuition, all materials, tools and equipment, and sometimes daily refreshments.

Are accommodation and food included?

Typically, neither accommodation, nor food, is included in the course cost. It will be clearly stated otherwise on the specific course booking page. Typically, participants bring a packed lunch, and we eat together, though there may be local options depending on the training site.

What are the daily timings for the training?

Green Woodworking & Coppicing courses usually run 9:30am to 4pm. We ask people to arrive at 9:15 so that we can start on time, and we’ll have breaks mid-morning and mid-afternoon. Lunch will be about 12.30 -1.30. Participants need to provide their own lunch.

Can all physical abilities join this course?

If participants have health needs or injuries, we will do our best to accommodate them, and participants are free to take time out over and above the breaks, mid-morning and afternoon, and at lunchtime, subject to informing the trainer. We ask that participants communicate their health needs to us prior to the course, or to make the trainer aware before the course starts. If you are not able to fully participate in all of the practical work, you will still gain valuable learning from observing and asking questions.

What is your refund policy?

The full terms and conditions of purchasing a SNaB training course can be found here – this includes our refund policy.

How do participants arrive to the training?

The School of Natural Building believes in the urgency of the climate challenge, and our work is fundamentally about supporting a low-carbon future where people live in ways which bring us closer to the earth, back into community with our ecosystem and back to ourselves. For this reason, we urge participants to travel to our course locations via public or shared transport where possible. We’ll connect course participants via an optional WhatsApp group in advance of the course, to facilitate ride-sharing.

Green Woodworking Courses