Coppicing

You’re up an oak tree somewhere between Ashtead and Epsom in Surrey. Wet lichens glow as you hunt for a footing on slick limbs. From the top of the canopy, the land turns to sea and glades appear as ‘oceans between continents of trees’. A ghostly armada of dead oaks lies becalmed in a clearing – a bleached collection of hulks left from a fire that happened decades ago. Like the titular character of Dr Seuss’s The Lorax, Luke Barley speaks for the trees, and his ambition is to make armchair woodlanders of us all. Ancient is his history of British woodlands – which turn out to be a lot

‘Artisan’ is now a word attached to coffee, candles, paper, clothes, rugs etc. It is used to raise prices by giving consumers a warm feeling of being pampered with the solid, ancient virtues of the handmade. It is, of course, a lie. If you want to know about Britain and yourself, read this book. James Fox is an academic and broadcaster. His book is a history of the true artisans that made Britain – the carpet-weavers of Kidderminster, the hatters of Luton, the Chilterns bodgers with their Windsor chairs, the potters of Stoke and the brewers of Burton. The strong, proud feeling of craft locality meant that every town was