Around 80 willow trees, felled at Woodland Trust site Fordham Farm, will soon find a new form as cricket bats.
The willows were planted over 25-30 years ago, specifically for the production of cricket bats. Since the 1700s, a particular variety of willow, known as the Cricket-bat willow (Salix albar var. caerulea) has been grown in Suffolk, Essex, Kent and Surrey to make cricket bats.
This variety of willow has a tall, straight trunk, which grows a rapidly thick stem, particularly suitable for bats, because it can be made into at least eight cricket bat ‘blades’. The face of each blade also has to be along the radius of the log. Usually three or four blade lengths can be cut from a single tree. This means that around 30 bats can be made from one willow tree.
The Trust sells the willows on to another company which, after felling them, cuts them into metre sections and makes them into cricket bat blades. Then a specialist bat-making company in Cambridge turns them into the cricket bats.
John Tucker, Operations Director for Southern England, says: ‘Eventually, the finished cricket bats could end up all over the world. However, the Woodland Trust will receive 30 of the finished bats to give away in the summer as competition prizes to Woodland Trust members and schools involved in Trust projects.’
