Outdoor Projects
Learn Some New Ancient Skills at orchard Barn If you are planning a timber-framed building project, or have an outdoor building to restore, you might like to learn some traditional techniques and do it yourself. In addition there are various courses suitable for home and business owners, with business development IHBC CPD available on professional courses. This year, Orchard Barn are offering the following courses: Restoration skills – which will teach you how to use natural, traditional building materials, and where you can source raw materials (some of them for free). “We can teach you how to repair your vintage wattle and daub panels, timber frame, clay lump or lime render. Our Restoration Skills course can also help you identify why your old house is damp and how to remedy it,” says cofounder Sarah Partridge.
Orchard Barn, based in Ringshall, Suffolk, is an environmental education Community Interest Company, celebrating ten years this year. Its aim is to increase participation in heritage activities, providing opportunities to learn traditional skills through practical participation. So, there is plenty of hands-on training using natural resources and organic techniques. This is ideal for glamping operators who are keen to conserve and enhance the historic features of their land and buildings in an eco-friendly way. Orchard Barn relies on local volunteers to take part in conservation projects and to help out around the barn and in the local woodland, offering working parties to provide community education and keep old skills alive.
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The Introduction to Timber Framing course spells out the basics of timber frames. Students start at the beginning with mortise and tenons, studs, soleplates, wallplates, jowls, pegs, braces and tie beams. Whether you're a homeowner, or thinking of building - this course provides a great understand of how a timber frame is constructed. The Roundwood Timber Frame and
Shingle Roof construction course will teach you how to construct a cart lodge frame and clasp purlin roof with trees in the round and teaches students how to use traditional carpentry hand tools and practice a wide range of skills that you can transfer into your own projects. There is also an Introduction to Lime – for those looking to do some maintenance to an old building in keeping with its age and materials. This covers health and safety considerations, mixing mortar and render, repointing, rendering and more. Even Wattle and Daub is making a comeback at Orchard Farm and this course will teach you how to use traditional greenwood working equipment, such as shave horse, draw knife and side axe, while you work with coppiced woodland materials and learn to source and assess clay and subsoil. For more information on the range of courses available at Orchard Barn – visit www.orchardbarn.org.uk or email sarah at sarah@orchardbarn.org.uk