360 degrees around Ben Law's woodland home

 
   
 
 

This is Ben Law's home in Prickly Nut Wood near Lodsworth, West Sussex, UK. The house is a roundwood sweet chestnut cruck frame with barley straw bale and wattle & daub walls and a roof of handmade Cedar shingles. Ben is recreating the human scale approach to woodland management and sustainable living by combining sensitive woodland management with permaculture principles and natural building.

 
 
 
         
 

Ben is the author of several books, the first of them being his well loved 'The Woodland Way' where he shows that a well designed woodland enterprise can be serious business.

For many years Ben lived in a hazel bender in Prickly Nut Woods where he tended the land and produced his woodland products like charcoal and shingles. Eventually Ben began to build his home, hand selecting trees from the woodland he manages to build a cruck frame roundwood home with walls of barley bales clad outside with cedar boards.

At the time few people were using roundwood so Ben developed construction methods which he later documented in his most recent book Roundwood Timber Framing (see below).
 

 
           
         
 
 
 

 


Here's a video from Ben where he introduces his roundwood timber framing DVD that accompanies his excellent book.

 

A Tour of Ben Law's Home

 

 
       
       
   

There is a good overview from Ben in this video of the tools you will find useful if you want to do any roundwood building.
 

Tooling up for roundwood building


Ben runs workshops in woodland management and roundwood building and also opens up his home for tours. Details are on his website Ben Law Woodsman.