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Contact Us
Tel: 07984 665958
Email: ruperra@gmail.com
Registered Charity no 1054796
Company Limited by Guarantee no 03186952
Ruperra Conservation Trust,
Orchard Bungalow,
Chatham
Machen, Caerphilly,
CF83 8SB
Products & Services
We aim to provide products for the local community, ensuring that the supply from the woodland is within sustainable limits. Some of the items we already sell or plan to sell are listed here. To order use the contact links.
Firewood
IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE
Pea-sticks
traditional way of supporting peas - bundles of 10
Beanpoles
7 - 8ft long, bundles of 10 (nicer than bamboo canes and not from as far away as China!)
Hedging Stakes
6ft, hazel or ash, used when laying hedges
Tree & Plant Supports
varying lengths for all sizes of plants
Hurdles
traditional woven fencing panels, available to order
Besom Brooms
great traditional way of sweeping leaves and worm casts from the lawn
Our services are available either on the Ruperra Woodland or on your own land. On the woodland we offer guided walks and training courses. On your own land we can offer contract management work.
We already have a regular programme of informative guided walks throughout the year (see our News and Events page) to which all are welcome. These are intended to increase people’s enjoyment and awareness of the woodland environment, and are open to all ages. Particularly popular are the summer bat walks, where you can learn to identify the bat calls by using special equipment, and bird and wildflower identification walks. These are normally free.
Specialist courses in Dormouse handling, habitat management and survey training for CCW licensing are available, run by experienced personnel. Please contact us for details.
Our next step is to run a series of courses for those who are interested in learning a new skill or want to find out more about aspects of woodland management.
Planned future courses are as follows:
Tool-making
Fencing
Hedge-laying
Craft-making skills
Woodland management skills
Chainsaw training
Wildlife walks and tours
Ecological surveys
Our experienced management team can offer their services if you need work done in your own woodland or grounds. We can provide conservation management, hedge-laying, creation and maintenance of nature areas in school grounds, tree planting and management of new plantations. We have qualified and insured personnel available for herbicide treatment work and ecological advice.
We have a range of cards, framed photos and other small gifts available, all with images from Ruperra. There's also a book of woodland history, Memories of Coed Craig Ruperra.
If you want more information about our contract services, or are interested in our products, gifts or courses, then please contact us by phone or email.
Here at Ruperra, we have 150 acres of natural resources from which we’re hoping to create a sustainable income. The management of a woodland is an expensive and labour-intensive process, but the Trust has looked back in time to see how the past can show us a way forward.
Woodlands have been used by people throughout history to provide the materials for building houses and ships, heating, cooking, crafts, furniture, food, medicine and many other needs. With the dawn of industrialization, felling and logging intensified as society required more paper for printing and fuel for the great industrial furnaces, and this increased through lengthy war years, depleting resources and seriously affecting the associated biodiversity.
This history is reflected in the woodland of Coed Craig Ruperra. Turning back the clock, we see evidence that the relatively new concept of sustainable management was once the norm in woods throughout the country. Put simply, this means that what was taken out of the woodland was done with a sensitivity as to how quickly this would be naturally replaced, therefore maintaining a balance in the natural resources and environment. Management of the woodland was carried out with a stewardship philosophy, where civilization’s relationship to nature was regarded as symbiotic rather than exploitative.
It is to this earlier management style and philosophy that Coed Craig Ruperra is now returning. While a continuous supply of resources, with a respect for the natural limitations of the land, was once the driver, today it is an increase in the wealth of biodiversity, with those resources seen as a by-product of this management style. Apart from this change in emphasis, the two styles are not so different and it’s important to realise that there can be compatibility between the needs of wildlife and of people.
As well as generating various products, the woodland is also used for educational purposes by college groups, a local eco-tourism venture and the Trust itself. We hope to increase these services in the future by running courses in woodland management and woodcraft skills. We are also available as a contract team if you need some help on your own land (see ‘Contract management work’ below).
To facilitate this, we’ve set up a Community Interest Company, Ruperra Countryside Services, which will be our trading partner, handling the business side of things with any profits going back to the Trust. So anything you buy from us helps to further the woodland work.
You can order logs (or other wood) by emailing us at:
ruperralogs@gmail.com
Contact Us
Tel: 07984 665958
Email: ruperra@gmail.com
