This is an unusual timber that I have only used once before. This was about ten years ago when a client came to me to make a series of pieces of furniture with a small log of wood that had come down on his estate. He told me proudly that it was not grown anywhere else in Britain. To cut a long story short this job turned into a nightmare that became to those of us involved a woodies equivalent of “Nightmare on Elm Street”
I have however come across this lovely timber again this time from a London park planted reputedly at the time of Capability Brown, the famous landscape gardener. This tree of which a part came down in the gales two years ago is reputed to be valued by the japanese for temple building. It is hard, takes a great polish and looks a little like English Cherrywood. Does anyone know anything else about it?