Summary
¦ English oak usually has a lot of variation.
¦ It’s generally grown in mixed species woodland and small copses.
¦ Flooring and furniture are some of its main markets.
¦ Local sourcing appeals to architects.
If there’s one word that suppliers use to describe English, and more broadly British, oak, it’s “characterful”. Admittedly, some people take against the variability of the timber, but others see it as an essential part of its appeal, particularly given growing consumer and specifier affinity for ‘natural’ products and wood that really looks like wood. As a result, while the market for English oak might not be huge given relatively limited supply, the wood does have a loyal following for use in everything from flooring, cladding and furniture to construction.
According to George Sykes Ltd managing director Richard Sykes, the UK does still have quite a lot of oak, but much of it is in mixed species woodlands and small copses. This means the trees generally have poorer form and the yield and consistency are not the same as the oak grown in large forest stands in Europe.
Still, it is the way it grows that gives English oak its uniqueness. “There is usually more variation in the growth pattern from one year to another which makes for a more interesting grain than European oak and an even greater distinction from American white oak,” said Mr Sykes.
More character
Sharon Poynton, sales director at Pontrilas Timber, agrees. “English oak has a lot more character than US oak, particularly in terms of the grain and it looks a lot more like real wood. But, of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and some people want a very clean-looking, fine-grained timber; they don’t want wood with any characterful knots, pip or cat’s paw. The flipside is that many people like that look and feel it’s very much part of the timber.”
Pontrilas itself supplies a lot of English oak for flooring, especially for renovation jobs where people actually want it to look older. In fact, the company’s oak business comprises 70% UK and 30% European.
“We only buy in what we can’t kiln ourselves,” said Ms Poynton. “We get our raw material from anywhere in the UK. This is partly down to supply but also partly to wanting specific trees; if you’re sourcing for an oak gate, for example, you want something that’s long and straight. If it isn’t available locally, we’ll go further afield, although there’s certainly enough raw material for us.”
English Woodlands Timber of West Sussex buys, saws and dries English oak joinery wood on request, particularly for furniture where a client wants a particular grain.
“We buy it from a 100-mile radius of our sawmill,” said managing director Tom Compton. “Although we are not huge consumers, we haven’t had any problem with supply. We know the soils around the area and therefore how the oak will perform; this gives us a degree of confidence in how it’s going to dry, for example.”
Specialist market
English oak sawn into beam has become a relatively specialist market, he added, with most mills still sawing beams in the UK tending to source most of their supply in log form from France or Germany.
“But there are one or two that still buy English because customers want it, even though they have to pay more for their beam than material from other sources of supply,” he said.
While the market for English timber may be primarily governed by aesthetics, sustainability and carbon footprint considerations also seem to be exercising an increasing influence on specification.
“There are some signs that architects are specifying locally-grown oak for environmental reasons,” said Mr Sykes. And sometimes today, he added, local means very local indeed, with ‘Welsh oak’, for instance, specified rather than just UK sourced.
Sustainable sourcing
English oak also seems to have the advantage of being viewed as sustainably sourced by definition, with English Woodlands commenting that its timber does not carry certification “other than the fact that it is English”.
“Architects do like it because it has a strong environmental profile,” said Ms Poynton. “Ours is FSC certified, but we certainly also market it as English oak for the benefits and advantages that brings.”
Mr Compton described English oak as still something of a niche product, but that there “will always be a select band of people who want it”.
Mr Sykes thought the market could be set to move in its direction. Sawmilling and kilning capacity in this country could prove a bottleneck to supply, with “rapid and heavy investment” needed to satisfy large-scale demand. However, he said, “as the cost of European oak rises, which it seems set to continue to do, then [conditions] should favour English oak”.
