Four types of willow rods are generally used in basket making, green, Buff, White and Brown.

Green rods are used in their natural state, having gone through no treatment process, their name originates from the raw state, not their colour. Buff, the most popular, is obtained by boiling the willows, to release the naturally occurring colourant Tannin from the bark into the wood. The bark is then stripped from the willow revealing the characteristic red-brown colouring. 

The stripping is done by a revolving brake, a machine much like a threasher commonly used to harvest corn.  White willow can only be produced for six springtime weeks a year, whilst the sap is rising the willow is cut and stripped of its bark straight away without boiling.

Brown willow is boiled but not stripped of its bark.  The willow is then spread out ready for drying ready for sorting into heights, they are then tied and made into bundles.

Basketmaking 

Basketmaking is demanding on the hands and needs a good deal of strength for some of the larger items.  To learn the art of basketmaking to a professional standard can take in excess of four years. 

Apprentices start off by making bases for small items such as hampers.  As their training progresses they can expect to work up to more complex lines, such as furniture and hot air balloon baskets, all of which demand a much higher level of skill and strength. 

One of our trained craftsman can produce ten, three foot wide dog baskets in a day, non varying in width by more than half an inch.  Such speed and dexterity is only acheived by constant practice and application.

The main beds are to be found around Burrowbridge, twelve miles east of Taunton and further south around Langport.  These areas are known as the levels or moors with names such as Hay Moor, Curry Moor or King’s Sedgemoor. 

Before the War over three thousand acres were grown, but today this has shrunk to about a tenth of that area.  Before the era of plastics, willow baskets were used extensively for agricultural and home consumption.  Apples, potatoes, fish, glass, china and pottery were always carried in willow baskets.  Willow furniture was also very popular.

Activities of growing and basketmaking have traditionally been separated skills and activities, but both interdependent.

Somerset is the last place in the country where willow is still grown commercially for basketmaking. 

Evidence of willow or withy cultivation on the Somerset Levels can be traced back to the Bronze Age.  Not far from our workshops in Somerset, a woven willow track has been uncovered near Glastonbury dating back some 4000 years.  One of the reasons for willow growing in this area is due to the fact that the area floods each winter and little ‘agricultural improvement’ has been made.

Willow Growing

There are over 200 varieties of willow but few are now grown in Somerset.  The most popular is Black Maul, which gives a good clean rod of about six feet. 

One variety,  Bowles Hybrid, is left to grow a second season to attain a height of over sixteen, which is often used in river bank erosion schemes as a more attractive solution than hard concrete or piling.

Growing willow is very labour intensive, needing constant attention. Although fast growing the willow rods are subject to several diseases. Sheep or young bullocks are often led into the willow beds to keep down the weeds because they haven’t got any teeth to damage the willow stumps.