In 2024 a ‘Swallows and Amazons’ festival at Windermere Jetty near Bowness-on-Windermere in Cumbria was organised by The Arthur Ransome Society and Lakeland Arts. Such was the publicity that I was contacted by a Lakeland charcoal burner who kindly sent me a report on his last talk:
‘I, Brian Crawley, am currently President of the Coppice Association North West. In our late 50s, my wife and I embarked on a career change into coppicing, principally making barbecue charcoal. This presentation is not about earthburns in general, it is about but a specific site for them.
‘I had always been aware of the traditional way of making charcoal, ‘charcoal earthburns’ being a stack of wood covered with earth to limit the oxygen intake to the burn.
‘The receipt of a set of photographs of a charcoal earthburn from David Jones, who was a patient of my daughter’s, encouraged my interest in the subject. David’s photos were of an earthburn that had taken place in 1972 and were included in an extract from his book ‘A Lakeland Camera’.
‘I later discovered that the charcoal burn had taken place as a result of discussion between Mike Dow, who was Treasurer of Haybridge Nature Reserve in the Rusland Valley, and Mike Davies-Shiel, a prominent local archaeologist. They enticed local woodland worker Jack Allonby, who had a retired uncle Tyson Allonby, a charcoal burner, to do an earthburn. Jack was helped by Bill Norris who regularly helped local archaeologist Mike Davies-Shiel and lived in the same village as Jack. Mike Dow arranged that a film would be made of the burn and subsequently directed it. Bill Norris narrated it. I was put in touch with Mike Dow through our Coppice Association NW secretary Alan Shepley, who had worked with Mike Dow in earlier years, and I was given the “Charcoal Burners of High Furness” DVD, which I then played to the audience. It was not my way of doing earthburns, but was historically interesting. A photo of the charcoal burners of Furness is available on ebay here.
‘For many years I had been fascinated by the visit of the children in the movie Swallows and Amazons (1974) to the charcoal burners and had always wondered where it was filmed. A gentleman on a charcoal making course, which we ran, explained to us that he was there when it was made and took us to the site not far from where he lived at Ickenthwaite in the Rusland Valley. Myles Dickinson told us how amazed he was that they got a double decker bus up the lane to the site for the children’s classroom. However, our inspection of the site in Glass Knott wood on the very narrow, winding and steep Corker Lane up to Ickenthwaite, plus another look at the Mike Dow film and David Jones’s photos, convinced me that it was the correct location.
‘I can’t remember how I first got in touch with Sophie Neville, who played Titty in the 1974 film Swallows and Amazons, but she gives some interesting details about ‘The real Charcoal Burners – who we met whilst filming ‘Swallows and Amazons’.
‘I was able to make some extra comments to the blog as well as a photograph the site many years after the filming. I then played a clip of their visit from the Swallows and Amazons film, being shown by courtesy of Studiocanal who own the rights.
‘It became my obsession to carry out another charcoal burn on the site and became significant in 2023 when I realised that the original filming had been in 1973, 50 years previously. This year also turned out to be the visit to the North West of the National Coppice Federation annual gathering.
‘Glass Knott wood is now owned by the Lake District National Park Authority. Permission to carry out the burn was requested and eventually approved with enthusiasm. At the same time Dan Sumner was looking for instruction on how to do an earthburn and we agreed that this was a good time for me to show him how, and for him to be responsible for the burn and provide the timber. The burn took place two weeks before the gathering and we had a fascinating visit to the site from Jack Allonby’s son John together with Bill Norris’s daughter June who had lived in the same small village, Spark Bridge, 50 years ago. A young John Allonby had been at the site with his father during both filmings. We also had a visit from Myles Dickinson who still lives nearby. We had a few very good helpers and some other visitors from LDNPA, Cumbria Woodlands, Coppice Association North West, The Arthur Ransome Society and Ruslands Horizons.
‘I then showed some photographs of the weekend’s successful event and a few photos of Sophie Neville’s blog on the web.
‘To finish, I then showed a DVD of the Millenium Burn, actually held in 2001, at which I learned earthburns from Arthur Barker, who was supported by Alan Waters and his friend Mark, at a site a bit further up the Rusland Valley where Jack Allonby had been filmed doing another earthburn by Sam Hanna, which can now be seen on the internet.’
Earthburns presentation by Brian Crawley, NCFed Gathering Oct 2023
The LDNPA are keen to do another burn at the site. News can be found on the Coppice Association – North West website.
Evidence of ancient foundry works on Peel Island looks interesting. You can read more here
Brian found an American copy of Swallows and Amazons that I have never seen before, available online in US dollars.
Sophie Neville 