Noted for toughness and elasticity. Young straight grained trees were traditionally used for sports goods, where white colour was also important. Older trees tend to have dark hearts.

Uses: Joinery, furniture, coach building & tool handles.

Noted for toughness and elasticity. Young straight grained trees were traditionally used for sports goods, where white colour was also important. Older trees tend to have dark hearts.

Uses: Joinery, furniture, coach building & tool handles.

Colour varies from white on the outside to brown at the heart. The texture is fine and even and the wood turns well.

Uses: Furniture, joinery, & woodwork where lack of durability is not a problem.

Selected prime, white one face and better.
Tends to be cleaner, whiter and milder than English.

Uses: Joinery furniture and woodware.

Light reddish in colour with creamy coloured sapwood. Soft, easy working but brittle. Obtainable in large sizes up to 36” wide, but normally very knotty. (These can be small black knots or large firm knots which vary from the size of a penny to a cricket ball.) Has a sweet smell and can be a very decorative wood with its variety of grain and knots.

Uses: Garden furniture, panelling and organ building. Supplies are limited.

Pale Pinkish brown wood which darkens on exposure to light, firm in texture, easily worked, it gives a smooth rich finish. Not obtainable in large sizes.

Uses: Traditional use is for furniture. It is suitable for joinery and panelling providing the design allows narrow widths. It is a fine decorative wood for panelling. Also used for brush backs and other small items.

Warm pink heartwood with a distinct yellowish sapwood. Cherry is a fine textured decorative wood, which takes a superb finish.

Uses: Furniture, joinery and shop-fitting.

Tough, closed texture, twisted in the grain, conferring resistance to splitting. Marked distortion may occur during seasoning. Clusters of pip-knots in this reddish brown, attractively figured wood enhance it’s appearance.

Uses: Milder logs may be used for furniture or joinery. Used for coffin boards & as pallet wood.

Lighter in colour and rather harder than Dutch/English Elm but easily worked, clean and straight in grain, tough and flexible.

Uses: Boat building, panelling and joinery.

Hard, finely textured and white in colour with little apparent sapwood. Availability is very limited and cutting sizes are usually small.

Uses: Mainly in the piano trade, or turnery works and butchers blocks.

Pale to light brown in colour, with a medium to fairly coarse texture. A straight to slightly irregular grain that can be interlocked. The heartwood is rated as durable

Uses: Furniture, Cabinetry, Joinery, Decorative panelling, Veneers and Flooring.

Golden-orange to brown in colour. Interlocked and sometimes irregular grain with a rather coarse but even texture.

Uses: boat building, interior and exterior joinery, laboratory benches, furniture, flooring, decking and marine work.

This timber has a reddish brown hardwood which is classed as durable.

Uses: Clean log free of knots may be used for boat building, otherwise uses are for constructional and fencing application.

Yellowish white in colour, with a fine, firm and close texture. Very easily worked wood which does not split.

Uses: The ideal wood for carvers and model makers.

Pale cream to white in colour with occasional darker streaks. Dense and wear resistance, machines well.

Uses: Worktops, chopping boards, flooring, joinery, furniture, butchers’ blocks and turnery.

A wood of great strength and durability, much prized for its beautiful appearance.

Uses: Widely used for furniture and joinery. It is also the timber of our churches, inns and country houses where oak beams up to 50ft long may be found. Also used for fencing and applications where its durability is of great advantage.

For beauty there are few woods which will compare with the variety known as English Brown Oak. Its knotty, gnarled grain brings out the best variety of shade and colour. Its colour is thought to be due to some slow incipient form of decay. It is comparatively rare. Colour may vary from an even mid brown to a stripy ‘tigerish’ figure.

Uses: As for other oaks

Due to intensive French forest cultivation, French Oak tends to produce longer, cleaner and straighter grained material than English Oak.

Uses: As for English oak

A durable Oak somewhat denser than English oak. The wood has less character than English largely due to the method of sawing.

Uses: Furniture, joinery, flooring and barrel staves.

An even pink colour, often with a ripple figure. Cutting sizes are small due to frequent defects.

Uses: Furniture and cabinet making.

The trees of London’s Parks and Squares are plane. Yellowish red in colour, it has broad medullary rays and when cut on the quarter is known as Lacewood. Normally cut and kiln dried to order. Stocks are limited.

Uses: For cabinets & for joinery.

The Sycamore tree is native to central and southern Europe and was introduced to Britain about four hundred years ago. As a robust and highly–reproductive tree it has become widespread in Britain too. If allowed to, it becomes a hundred feet (thirty-five metres) high with a good clean butt or trunk enabling nice clean wide and long boards.

Sycamore is a Maple and so appearance is fairly similar to the Canadian or Rock Maple. But Sycamore has a character of its own. It is not quite so hard and the texture is a little more open. Also annual growth is marked by a fine line. The creamy-white lustrous colour is sometimes varied by some areas of green or brown giving it a special character. Occasionally there can be some very attractive ripple-grain or fiddle-back figure which is much sought after.

Drying needs care as stick-stains can easily occur. The traditional method was to stack boards upright with no contact. When dry it is stable and as strong as oak. Straight-grained timber machines well, working rather like beech, to a nice smooth surface. Ripple-grain and wild-grain need care to avoid picking up.

Sycamore is a very attractive wood for furniture, panelling, kitchens and turnery. Its resilient nature (like the tree!) makes fore a heard-wearing wood suitable for rolling pins, breadboards, tabletops and especially for attractive domestic flooring.

Yellowish or brownish white in colour. Soft and light in weight. Trees often grow to a large size. A good utility wood, stringy and elastic.

Uses: Formerly used for battery boxes in electric vehicles, but now consigned to low value uses.

It is light to purplish brown in colour, often with black veined lines. The sapwood is white. Trees are often of irregular shapes and difficult to obtain in long lengths. Good trees are becoming very scarce owing to the demand for the veneer trade. Heavy fine grained wood, very resistant to splitting. Can be very faulty in the heart.

Uses: Joinery, furniture, turnery & mouldings, rifle butts & car dash.

Tends to be darker in colour than European Walnut. Available in longer lengths and wider boards. Sapwood is light in colour. Very durable.

Uses: Furniture, joinery and flooring. Also used for contrasting with lighter coloured species in flooring and inlay in joinery.

A tree that attains great age but seldom a great height. The butt is often very fluted, colour varies from pale yellow to dark red or purple. Fine close grain, tough and hard, often with small clusters of pips. Very Faulty and only yields small cutting sizes. Can show great character if natural faults are included.

Uses: Mainly for small articles of furniture, chair making and turnery.