A wood turning club has raised £20,000 by making almost 1,800 items from fallen and felled wood at Sizergh, near Kendal.
The income supports the work of the National Trust, which look after the Medieval manor and its estate, home to the Strickland family for 26 generations.
Since March 1, hand turned mice, mushrooms, keyrings, doorstops, bowls and pens have been bought by visitors to the National Trust shop at Sizergh. They are all made from fallen or felled wood from the gardens and estate, including ash, apple, cherry, beech, yew and oak.
The mushrooms are the work of Malcolm Smith, of Halton, Lancaster, who, along with his wife Hilary, have been volunteering in the gardens at Sizergh since 2010.
Malcolm is a member of the Red Rose Woodturning Club, which he joined after retiring. The club has roughly 80 members who meet monthly in Bilsborrow, north of Preston. Malcolm took up wood-turning when he inherited his late father’s lathe and since then he has enjoyed developing his skills in this craft.
Malcolm said: “Vicki Proctor, Sizergh’s retail manager, saw the work of the Red Rose Woodturners when the club was demonstrating here. She looked for items which could sell in the shop, under the condition that they must made from wood from the Sizergh estate.”
Alongside Malcolm, two other members of the club, Geoff and Harry, make the items.
The talented turners have also scaled up their creations and recently made six large dragonflies for the children’s wild play area.
Hilary McGrady, director-general of the National Trust, praised the club’s work in her AGM speech last month. She said: “Each summer Malcolm organises a wood turning week in the Great Barn, and he and his colleagues use wood from the Sizergh estate, to make these, tiny, adorable, wooden mice and mushrooms. Every penny of profit goes back to conservation at Sizergh, and each visitor takes a little bit of that special place back home to treasure.”
