A lot of sound English timber has gone into the making of our Coppicer's Cottage, which lies on the edge of the forest from which he makes his living. His is a very ancient woodland craft, known, it is thought, to our Neolithic ancestors with their flint-head axes. The coppicer works principally with hazel, oak and ash, but almost any well-established hardwood tree can be coppiced successfully.
   The craft depends on the tree being cut down almost to ground level. From the stump -- called a 'stool' -- a number of shoots will sprout, yielding eventually up to a dozen trees. This is not a craft that can be hurried. The 'crop' is rotated so that there's always some wood, somewhere, ready for cutting--hazel for spars perhaps, or ash for hurdles. He's happy in the knowledge that the stools which produce his coppiced wood today will still be there after he is gone, for they can have a useful life of up to one hundred years.