Latest News
Steve Green, our Company Secretary.
We are deeply saddened to announce the death of Steve Green after a short illness. Steve, who was our Company Secretary for almost 50 years, joined us in June 1977. He was held in the highest regard by colleagues here at the mill and in the local area, and was universally respected throughout the forestry…
St. George’s Primary School in Clun ponders some outdoor lessons
St. George’s Church of England School in Clun is one of many local schools we support whenever we can. These include the Primary School and Community College here in Bishop’s Castle as well as the schools at Norbury and Chirbury nearby. Many of our colleagues either attended these schools or have children and grandchildren who…
A new Co-op store for Bishop’s Castle is on the way – but first we have to clear the site
An exciting proposal to build a new Co-op store on land we own on the edge of our sawmill has passed all the planning hurdles and work has started on the demolition of the empty building which stands on the site. Local people will know the building as one that stood behind the old Countrywide…
The new system for Saturday firewood collections is working well
Following a safety review in what is a busy working sawmill we had to restrict collections of loose firewood which was manually loaded into car boots to Saturday mornings between 8.00am and 12.00 noon. It’s great to report hat the system is working well…and that everyone is safe! Of course, firewood can be made available for…
Recognising long service
People seem to change jobs every five minutes these days so it’s great for us to know that we have several members of staff who have been with us for multiple decades. Ian Andrews and Stephen (‘Reg’) Morris are two such staff who were today presented with long service awards to mark 40 years each…
Why timber colours differ when first delivered
We regularly get asked about why wood varies in colour. This picture shows Redwood posts which have been treated to the Highways Agency UC4 specification. On the same load are Spruce Rails treated to UC3 Highways Agency specification. The fact is that, as well as different species being used, no two bits of timber from…
It’s the early bird that catches the worm
You can see daylight arriving in these shots from our very early delivery to a site near Hull. It’s one of two loads of Highways treated post and rail fencing going in today. We and our customers have had a really busy start to the year…and long may that continue for us all!
It’s an ill wind….
…that blows no-one some good. This visiting crane wagon was delayed on his travels today and arrived at the mill too late for it to go further tonight. We always try to help drivers when we can: the place wouldn’t function without them so we were happy to grant a favour and let him…
Local forest, local logs, local timber – all cut and treated by local people
Remember that timber from Bury Ditches harvested and hauled to the mill by local firms? It’s now been transformed in our mill from round bits to square bits and here it is going in for treatment to prolong its serviceable life. It’s all thanks to some very impressive machinery, equally impressive systems, and a team…
An owl’s eye view of our mill
We’re grateful as ever to AW Jenkinson driver Ray Powell for these stunning drone images of our mill at night just before we switch off all but the security lights. That’s Ray’s rig towards the bottom of the top image with a load of logs coming into the mill. The pictures here and others we’ve…
More on the harvesting at Bury Ditches
Here are some more images from the harvesting going on at Bury Ditches. The GIF show the location and the logs being loaded to go to the mill. The last frame is a justifiably happy Simon Flack of SJF Timber as another load goes on its way The video shows Simon bringing logs up to…
Important changes to local firewood sales
The Following is Effective from 22nd January 2024 FIREWOOD SALES: DUE TO AN ON-SITE SAFETY POLICY REVIEW we will no longer sell LOOSE MANUALLY LOADED (into car boots) firewood from our site on weekdays (Mon-Fri) Sales will be restricted to Saturday mornings between 8.00am and 12.00 noon. There will be access only for Commercial vehicles…
