I once read in an old account by Sir Archibald Geikie in his great tome “The Scenery of Scotland” 1901 that the Scots were a “product of their landscape”. In some respects it’s true - the crag, the hill, the shore, the glen, the merse, the machair, the big sky and the endless sea. These elements may well mould and form behaviour and character.
I’ve always felt connected to my land, my coast and my past. These artworks are my response to things ancient, to connections and signs from long ago before.

A Big Tree welcome back to the new order and a Big Tree thank you to our first stool making course attendees Jim, Shaun, Willie, Gavin, John and Murdo. Thanks lads for making it such a great day. Stay safe guys. See some of you back quite soon.

Thank you for being so patient and understanding during this crisis. It's been tough for most and heart breaking for others. Our sympathies and thoughts with all of you that have lost family or friends through this virus. We are still awaiting the green light here in the Borders to be able to proceed and open up the gallery and courtyard workshop area. We've been fortunate to live in a rural area that has not been affected too greatly by cases. We want to keep it that way ! To this end we have decided to begin very tentatively with reduced number courses. We propose to attempt the following as from and inclusive of August 29th 2020.

For those of you that have been unable to attend and still want to come on a course we propose to :

• reschedule you into new dates in 2020 and 2021 on FRIDAY or SUNDAYS for the one day courses such as stool making, spoon, treen and bird carving, polelathe turning, sitooterie and woodprint making. These will have to take place on a Friday as we have no other days free this year due to the courses being fully booked til Xmas
• for those booked onto weekend courses such as chair making, shave horse construction and stone lettering we will have set specific dates for these but will have to run into the winter months of Jan and Feb 2021
• they will be allocated on a first to respond basis with no changes or cancellations being made once you have confirmed a date. You might be disappointed not to get the date you want - but you'll at least attend a course.
• this might take some time to run through til everyone has been reallocated. Some of you will have accommodation re-booking to do so that's going to be tricky as well.

We have to do it this way. If we shifted everyone across into next year we lose a whole year trading and no time or dates will be available for new attendees. Therefore we will have no income at all in 2020. The workshop and gallery are going through a different set of unlocking issues and may take a lot longer to regroup and recover.

Refunding postponed courses is not possible. Those of you who no longer wish to or won't be able to attend will have their course fees used to pay for all the materials, tooling, external tutor time, rent, insurance, utility costs etc that we have had to pay over past few months. We are sure you will all understand. We will start to reschedule folks in as from 8th August. So watch out for an email from us soon.


Thanks - Eoin Big Tree Person

We have had such a fantastic responses to our 2020 courses already. Therefore if you have been thinking about attending one of our courses or would like to gift a friend, colleague or partner a Timber Token please get on line soon and get them booked up. We are almost booked through until July 2020 now. Here's what some of our recent course participants thought of their courses. 

"Eoin and his team ensured that everyone on the stool making course went home with a brilliant stool and a greater respect and love of wood. 
The tuition, the environment and encouragement received is second to none. A great experience and opportunity to meet a lovely group of folk with a common interest in wood work." - Alison

Massive thanks for the Print Making course today! This was my third course with the Big Tree Society so I was expecting something great, but today was just so much more! Yet again I’ve come away having created stuff that I had no idea about how to make this morning, and I am proper chuffed with my prints! It was also huge fun, and a brilliant collaboration; we all really enjoyed working together to produce results that were surprising and sooo amazing! You should definitely run this course more often! - Kate

Had a great time making a sitooterie! Brilliant venue and great instruction from Eoin & Gail. Really chuffed with my bench and can't wait to go back to try something else. Highly recommended! - Colin 

Some recent images of happy makers on the stool, chair, carving, lettering, wildcrafting courses. Fully booked up for 2019 and just about to put up 2020 course dates this week. Blimey where does the time go ? A big Tree shout out to everyone who has attended this year so far.

It can take a hardy bunch to come and work with us here in the early months of the year. Big Tree it up for the keen crew who have turned out so far this year.