Stock Gaylard,Dorset The oak fair is for those interested in timber, woodcraft, and the countryside and conservationIn the remarkable gathering of craftsmen,artificers and artisans at the Stock Gaylard oak fair, the one who first caught our eye was Terry Heard, and bent over his ingeniously fashioned wooden bench specially adapted to the broomsquire’s traditional craft of making besoms from bundles of twigs bound to a pole.
His twigs,he said, were of birch, and though heather was often used,and his poles were of hazel, though any straight pole would do. A blacksmith friend had made his tools. He tightly bound and wired a bundle of twigs, and trimmed them with a sharp hand-axe,inserted the sharpened close of the pole and hammered in pins to fix it all with the deft handiness of the expert.
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Source: theguardian.com