Press Releases

East Anglian Daily Times - Monday, August 22, 2005

Dylan’s passion for Wood

If you do nothing else this August Bank Holiday weekend take a drive out to the village of Polstead to see Suffolk craftsman Dylan Pym at work.

At his Oakyard Workshops behind Maria Martin’s Cottage, Dylan makes handcrafted furniture from English hardwoods – oak, elm, walnut and ash he garners from local woodland and hedgerows and windfalls from storms such as those in 1987 and 2002.Some timbers come from further afield, such as north Norfolk, but most have travelled no further than a few miles.

Dylan makes everything from Windsor chairs to refectory tables, cabinets to kitchens, sideboards to stools. Every piece is unique and hand crafted using traditional methods. But what gives his furniture its distinctive stamp is his mastery of the age-old art of steam bending. Traditionally used in chair making, Dylan has put it to use to create sideboards, tables and other elegant, individual pieces that are equally at home in a traditional or contemporary setting.

There are few machines in Dylan’s workshop and most of the work is done painstakingly by hand, using traditional joinery techniques such as peg and dovetail joints. It’s a process that demands patience. Timbers must be air-dried for a couple of years, steam bending individual pieces of timber must be done a year before they can be used. But the results are well worth the wait - indeed; some of Dylan’s more imaginative work blurs the boundary between function and art. This month his ‘wobbly sideboard’, with its curvaceous top and sides, has been on show at prestigious furniture exhibition in Cheltenham and future projects include a ‘tall girl’, a voluptuous, waisted variation on the tall boy. And like a work of art, each finished piece bears the maker’s name, type of wood and place of origin carved underneath.

Dylan wasn’t always a furniture maker. He started his working life as a shepherd and it was stumbling across pieces of fallen wood that kindled an interest in learning the craft. He enrolled at Suffolk College to learn the basics of joinery and cabinet making, but while he clearly had the talent, he had little interest in taking exams and went his way before the end of his course. Twelve years later he is continually busy with commissioned work as well as speculative pieces.

Dylan is passionate about wood and Suffolk, he says, has some of the best hardwoods in the world, with a wealth of variation in colour and grain. He puts back more than he uses, planting around 300 trees a year.

Much of the success of his work stems from his skill at finding the best timbers. He is continually adding to his already extensive knowledge of their various properties – strength, flexibility and ability to absorb shock, for example. He also understands the relationship between the standing tree and the finished product – that the way a tree grows will determine what it can eventually be used for.

You can visit Oakyard Workshops, where Dylan will be demonstrating steam bending over the Bank Holiday weekend of August 27, 28 and 29. Take the B1068 turning off the A12 towards Highham and continue to Polstead. At the entrance to the village turn right into Martin’s Lane, Oakyard Workshops are on the left behind Maria Martin’s cottage.

Suffolk & Norfolk Life - May 2003

For the Love of Wood

In the small village of Polstead a master craftsman is at work recreating the Suffolk Countryside in the form of furniture and artefacts.

Dylan Pym, proprietor of Oakyard Workshops, is a qualified furniture maker of distinction whose work is carried out only on trees that have been felled in the East Anglian region, with as much as possible coming from Polstead and the surrounding villages. “There’s so much beauty on my doorstep why go anywhere else?” asks Dylan. “Chestnut, ash, elm, cherry, walnut, sycamore, yew and maple are all English hardwoods that can be crafted to form fabulous pieces of furniture,” he says, “and they are not only versatile but naturally produce a number of unimaginable colours including reds, yellows and purples. The aromas too, like that of cedar wood can also be appreciated.”

As a boy Dylan helped on the family smallholding in Martins Lane, Polstead, where his workshop is now based, feeding the chickens and looking after the herd of Suffolk sheep. When he left school he became a full-time shepherd, at one time caring for 120 ewes. Having lived and worked the land for a number of years Dylan wanted to try something else and longed to become a furniture maker. He unsuccessfully searched for someone to take him on as an apprentice, believing hands-on experience a much more valuable means, but instead had to settle for a college course. Although the course taught him the basic skill: how to use the tools and so on, it wasn’t until he really had the opportunity to experiment with the woods that his love for the craft grew and his passion became evident.

What is exceptional about the furniture from Oakyard Workshops is a result of Dylan’s careful selection of timbers and the combination of the traditional and new methods he uses to ensure sound structures coupled with a touch of originality: hand crafted dovetails and pegs provide the strength while a steam bending process adds creativity to the furniture range such as Windsor chairs, refectory tables, cabinets, dressers and kitchen units.

The steam bending process is not an easy task to master and is better suited to certain types of wood than others. That does not mean to say it can’t be done; it just requires more skill, impeccable timing and a lot of patience. In particular, oak is not one of the best specimens for steam bending. In fact many a skilled carpenter would not even attempt to steam bend oak, but Dylan has persevered and been admired by many in the trade for the end results he has produced. “Beware…” he says, “the boiler isn’t the only thing letting off steam!”

Given his self-sufficient background and creative flair, Dylan also makes sure nothing goes to waste; as he turns leftover pieces of timber into rolling pins, chopping boards, lampshades and more. Other scraps are used for firewood and even the shavings are used for paths around the vegetable patch on the smallholding.

The smallholding sits in 18 acres of woodland and grazing land and is self-sufficient homestead for two families who work the land – grazing Suffolk sheep, growing a variety of vegetables as well as maintaining their woodland acres. A number of areas have been set aside for tree replanting and growth of a variety of trees including oak, walnut and elm. Over the past ten years they have planted between two and three hundreds specimens per year.

Unfortunately for Dylan, it is unlikely that he will get to use the saplings he is nurturing as many of the trees take tens, even hundreds of years to mature. But he is happy in the knowledge that his efforts will provide future generations with the necessary raw materials to continue producing excellent pieces of furniture, plus there are still plenty of trees available to keep Dylan occupied. Besides redesigning and crafting the furniture he spends a lot of time picking out suitable trunks of recently felled trees, which mainly come from the thinning and maintenance of local woods and hedgerows, before they are taken to a local sawmill and cut into planks. These planks are then dried, seasoned and stored for more than two years in designated storage sheds close to the workshop.

When the planks are ready, Dylan selects which pieces would be most suitable, not just for a particular item of furniture he has in mind but an exact part of that furniture, be it the top, drawer front, side piece or seat and this careful selection process ensures his furniture collections stand out from all the rest. Further to this, the handcrafted dovetails and pegs, the steam bending process and a beeswax finish, (from the bees kept on the smallholding by Dylan’s mother) not to mention an awful lot of skill and patience, together provide a long lasting finish.

Of course, you really have to take a first hand look at Oakyards’ furniture range to really appreciate its quality and beauty, and as visitors are always welcome take advantage of their hospitality and call in to the workshop and showroom.

Samples of work can be seen and purchased from the workshop in Martins Lane, Polstead or orders taken for bespoke pieces. Oakyard Workshops also hold an open weekend throughout the August bank holiday where demonstrations by Dylan’s and those of other local crafts people can be seen, such as local ironmonger, painter, potter and jewellery maker. There are also fresh picked fruits and homemade snacks and beverages available like apple and ginger juice and a gorgeous lemon cake.