Wood Fair at West’s of East Dean

On the most fabulous weekend of the summer yet we had the pleasure of joining the Sussex wood-eratti in shorts, socks and sandals to celebrate summer solstice with Peter & Gil West and all their team at West’s of East Dean

wests of east dean - got the t-shirtBecause we spent so much time gassing with friends, selling wood and eating cake we didn’t do a terribly thorough job of recording our weekend…

but here are a few photo’s to give you an idea of the atmosphere and make you wish you’d been with us, lounging around in the sun on bales of hay watching Adam’s mad axe men, chainsaw races (win a Stihl chainsaw!) and steam powered saw milling, camping in the fields, firing up the barbecue, partying into the night with live music and, of course, drinking lots of beer!

woodfair field and stands the steam engine to power the saw cake, cake and more cake chipper chippers the we haven't got a lot left to sell stand south downs national park stand got the beam pretty shepherds hut the business end of a steam engine walking with wood planks log high rollers on the log rollers leslie's willow stand hammering it home  leslies woven baskets peg making blanks peg making with downland workshops' millie woven hazel panels beautifully made sweet and loving restored timber tractor old round timber cart pulled by the grey tractor cowdray forestry get the logs up onto the wood mizer ryan and his chainsaw carvings using the oak peg blanks and a shave horse forest heat energy were there coppice products, beautiful woven fence panels that scary end of a harvester on show hot do not touch leslies willow hearts the handmade handtools stand sally at west's thinks we can't see her north wood have got a shiny new truck to show woodfair queue for food billhoooks expertly worked the chainsaw carving very unusual chainsaw carved sofa's and chairs the rolled steel on the steel rollers the iron in the fire peter and gil with the finished wheel hot off the table cowdray woodmizer offcuts woven hazel panels beautifully madeAnd here our the heroes of the day, brothers Peter & Gil West, after they managed to put a flaming white hot ‘tyre’ on a freshly made wooden wagon wheel for their new horse drawn round timber cart with all of us woodfans watching…  and cheering!

Peter & Gil

If you wish you’d been there take a look at the WoodFair website, there’s a great list of exhibitors with links to all their websites which is a really great resource.

This is probably as good a time as any to say that if you’ve never been down to see the showroom at West’s you really, really should.

Next time you’re down near us take a detour and have a wander round the furniture showroom in the barn (that they built themselves!).

You’d be hard pushed to find wood folk more knowledgable and more skilled than these Peter & Gil in what they do (which is just about everything!) and they just happen to be very nice people too

Go and say ‘Hi ‘from us and see you at the next WoodFair!

P.S. Round of applause to Jenny for putting up with all of us in the run up to the wood fair… the phrase ‘herding cats’ springs to mind…

We love you Jenny!!! XXX

———————————————————————————————————————————————————

English Woodlands Timber Ltd are very proud to sponsor the 2014 Wood Fair at West’s of East Dean in West Sussex on Saturday 21st & Sunday 22nd of June, £6 admission, children go free!

WWF_A4_poster%20%283%29We hope we’ll see you there!

 

Posted on June 16th 2014 under english hardwoods, woodland products. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.