Learning to make a hurdle with hazel rods
by Angus, 10 April, 2019, 5 comments
Dan Watson has been making hurdles for 30 years and reckons there are over 200 hurdle-makers in the UK. The process is physically demanding but also very skillful. Dan now uses his own small woodland and in a single day he can make three hurdles - by contrast it took me a whole day and lots of help to get mine half finished - hurdle-making gets much quicker, and neater, with experience.
There are several skilled operations in creating a hurdle. You start by selecting the hazel rods from hazel coppice and cut them at the base. Next, you take these branches to your working area and trim off the side twigs being careful to cut upwards to avoid creating tears in the bark. A base plate is needed with holes and ours had nine so that none uprights could be put into the base making a hurdle six feet wide and eventually about 4 foot high. Read more...
