We are a small willow crafts business based on the Hardwick Trust Estate in the beautiful Chiltern Hills AONB in South Oxfordshire, England.
We undertake a wide range of bespoke willow garden projects, beautifying your garden. Everything is made to order, tailored to your wants & needs. We can design the project ourselves to your brief or work with your chosen garden designer or architect.
We also make a range of stunning willow chairs suitable for the covered outdoor space or your home, as well as attractive willow baskets and sustainable willow coffins.
And for those who would like to try their hand at making, we offer a selection of willow craft courses for those who like to get stuck in. Great for up-skilling, immensely rewarding, and better still, you get to take your beautiful creations home. From gypsy willow chairs, woven plant supports and basketry, there’ll be a course to suit you!
We harvest the majority of our willow from numerous sites including an acre near the banks of the River Thames on the Hardwick Trust Estate where we are establishing our own organically grown willow beds.
Please take your time to look at what we offer and support the ongoing resurgence in rural skills. If there is something in particular you would like to commission, please let us know. If it’s made from sticks we’ll have a go – probably!
Thank you
Dave Jackson, The Stick Smith
Area of Operation
We like to work as locally as possible, however, with such a specialised craft we tend to have quite a large catchment area covering the counties of Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Surrey, Berkshire, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Warwickshire and of course London.
Meet the Team
Dave Jackson, The Stick Smith
Dave started his weaving career in 1998 when looking for a new direction in life. Having started out volunteering for a conservation charity in the Malvern Hills, Worcestershire, overseeing coppicing work. He quickly realised he’d found his vocation. In 1999 he set up his business, establishing himself early on as rural craft teacher, delivering greenwood and woodland craft qualifications to the students of local special needs schools. Teaching was a fantastic accelerated form of learning for Dave, whilst offering a very therapeutic & natural learning environment for some very challenging but deserving kids.
Dave left teaching around 2005 to focus on his own journey in the world of sticks, making a wide range of willow & coppice craft products. Dave hosted a Coppice Craft Apprentice for 3 years which helped with the development of the business. This experience gave him the confidence to employ full time a local lad to help with the ever increasing work load.
Away from crafting, there were now moves for the formation of a national coppice organisation. Having previously set up the Malvern Hills Coppice Network, Dave was asked to sit on the steering committee which led to the creation of the National Coppice Federation (NCFed) in 2013. Dave became a founding Director of NCFed, serving for about 10 years, the last 5 of which as Chair.
In 2018, Dave ‘upped sticks’ and moved his business to the Hardwick Trust Estate in the beautiful Chiltern Hills AONB. The business has streamlined and blossomed with willow craft becoming the main focus, in part due to a lack of available hazel coppice in the beechwoods of the Chilterns.
He now lives on a 1904 Dutch Barge with his partner Maria and three cats, surrounded by the rural idyll which is The Hardwick Trust Estate and the River Thames, on the banks of which he grows his own willow following organic principles.
Maria Jenkins
Courses assistant, website guru, willow growing & harvesting, general support & workhorse, whilst being a full-time Organic Vegetable Grower! (Tolhurst Organic Partnership CIC)
Kristen Park, Weaver
Assistant project weaver, basket maker, gardener and orchard specialist.