About me
I’m Shane. I’m not a timber expert. I’ve just got a deep interest in timber, my own workshop, and a job that has me around timber all week, delivering it to yards, sawmills and workshops.
My workshop is a 600 sq ft unit in Derbyshire. I don’t get much time in there these days. When I do, I make hand-painted signs, and small bits of furniture like stools, benches and plant stands out of chunky timber. Some of it is reclaimed scaffold boards, and some of it I get from work. If I had my way I’d be in there every day, making things and selling them. I’m not there yet. The day job pays the bills.
Who it’s for
My heart is with the makers. The joiners and furniture makers, and the people on Etsy with a workshop in the garage or a small unit somewhere, making chopping boards, signs, resin tables, beautiful furniture, all kinds of stuff. That’s who Hawksbury is mainly for.
Then there’s people who want to build something sizeable themselves, like a garden studio. They’re brave enough to have a go at it, and they need a bit of help getting the timber right.
And there’s the yards that supply them. I’m not that interested in the big national chains selling mainly treated and commodity timber. I mean the smaller independent firms: hardwood specialists, owner-run merchants and local sawmills.
I once got talking to the fellow who owns Deep in Wood, near Abingdon in Oxfordshire. If I remember rightly, he told me he started with one tree and built the business up from there himself. That’s the kind of business I want on here.
How it fits together
You might come here to learn about timber and find a yard near you that has what you need. Makers can find their timber here, and list their own work for free, with a gallery and a form so people can ask them for a quote. Some people will come meaning to build something themselves and end up getting a maker to do it instead.
How it’s written
I don’t sell timber, and I’m not an authority on it. The guides, the species library, the glossary and Reading the Grain are a curation, a mix of research and things I know myself. I research them to the best of my ability and check them against proper sources, and the guides list theirs at the end. If something’s wrong I’ll fix it. If I don’t know something I’ll say so.
From the Cab is different. That’s real life around the yards and workshops I deliver to, and whatever’s on my wagon that week.
If you contact a yard or ask a maker for a quote, it goes straight to them. Hawksbury doesn’t take a cut of anything you buy. Where I know a business through work, its listing says so.
Why Hawksbury, and why I built it myself
The name comes from Hawkesbury, a village near Coventry. That’s where my boss’s yard is. I liked the name. I also misspelt it when I bought the domain, so Hawksbury it is. I’m human, I make mistakes.
Hawksbury is also me following my interest in web development and technology. I built the site myself, and I use AI to do it. I’ve embraced it and I think it’s the future.
My humble 600 sqft workshop
Stuck on something?
Ask Shane
I don’t sell timber, but I can point you in the right direction — which species suits the job, what to ask a supplier, and who is likely to have it.