Mention the name ‘AJ Charlton & Sons’ within the timber industry and you’re likely to be told that they’ve been around forever. Well, not quite, but this year the family company is celebrating 100 years in business.
AJ Charlton, originally known as FV Charlton, was started in 1903 when Frank Charlton decided to diversify from farming and haul timber from the local woods to the Somerset coal pits.
Today, AJ Charlton & Sons owns and manages one of the largest remaining temperate hardwood sawmills in the UK, employing around 125 staff and heading towards a total of £10m turnover. The company is also well-known as one of the country’s largest manufacturers of wooden gates and oak fencing and more recently has diversified again, adding solid wood flooring and furniture to its portfolio.
Coal mines still provide considerable custom for Charltons although now it supplies not simple pit props but engineered chocks used in roof support systems, made under licence and calculated to hold up the hundreds of tons of weight at the individual coal face. Other key customers include stockists of garden and field gates, fencing, flooring and furniture, pallet manufacturers and furniture manufacturers. Products are sold mainly throughout the UK, with a small number of European stockists.
Charltons sees its focus for the future as being on hardwood products from oak flooring to skirting and mouldings, oak beams, oak doors and solid oak furniture to gates and fencing. The company already offers a full range of discounted products at its “World of Wood” retail store in Radstock near Bath.
Family strengths
“Throughout the company’s history, when the going has got tough, the strength of the family company has come to the fore, with everyone working harder until we found another niche market to allow us to diversify; recent years have been no exception,” managing director Peter Charlton explained.
“So while our sawmill – which cuts for the mining and pallet industry as well as oak beams, fencing and flooring – still accounts for over 25% of turnover, we now have a flourishing gates and fencing division which has seen demand increase by 250% in the last 10 years, a fast-growing flooring division and a range of imported solid oak and beech furniture,” said Mr Charlton.
“We are expanding our customer base using some imported finished products but hope to be able to change back to home-grown oak as the exchange rate improves. We are, however, one of the few companies from whom you can buy UK or European oak flooring and mouldings from stock. We are also launching a new range of braced oak doors.”
He said that to mill hardwood effectively “it seems that sawmills must be either small low-cost operations cutting selected timbers for local markets, or a larger mill with sufficient volumes to warrant investment in technology and with the ability to optimise the output value and sell it nationally”.
Charltons has not fought shy of investment in recent years and today’s operation is a far cry from the first sawmill which opened with one small rip saw and cross-cut saw. Today the company has two sawmill production lines and one re-saw operation. The latest line, installed in 2000, is capable of cutting four to five small hardwood logs per minute while the second cuts larger logs for oak flooring and joinery. The two lines are connected to give maximum flexibility and cover during the inevitable bottlenecks and breakdowns which occur when cutting hardwood.
Private growers
The company cuts around 550 tons of English oak per week and most of this is now received cut to length instead of the traditional random length logs. Approximately 60% of logs are sourced via Forest Enterprise, with the remaining 40% from private woodlands which account for the vast majority of quality oak. And Charltons intends to work with more private growers to satisfy customer demand.
“We recognised that to survive we had to manage our production process efficiently,” said Mr Charlton. “While we are chasing production on lower grades through the sawmill we still have to spend the extra time necessary on higher value products.
“The grading of timber has always been done by eye for example and, while it’s possible to kiln from green in modern kilns, we prefer to first air-dry our boards for flooring for between 6-12 months because we know that slower drying is less stressful and produces a better finished board.
“Our main strength is that we have grown up with wood and have an instinctive understanding of the timber rather than a theoretical knowledge.”
AJ Charlton & Sons is still very much a family concern. AJ (Anthony James) Charlton, now 73, who became part of his father’s business at the age of 12, is chief executive and is still heavily involved.
His four sons are all directors: alongside Peter as managing director, Michael is the sales and marketing director, David is the manufacturing director for the sawmill and Adrian is manufacturing director for the gates and flooring divisions. Several of AJ’s grandchildren, the fifth generation, are now learning the business.
Over the years, the company has attracted some prestigious clients. In 2000, it was granted a Royal Warrant for supplying gates and timbers to the Royal households. Oak from the sawmill is increasingly finding favour in traditional settings; for example in recent years it has been used to refurbish Thornbury Castle in south Gloucestershire, in the form of flooring, doors, beams, panelling and four poster beds.
Certification
While Charltons is accredited for FSC chain of custody and would like to sell FSC-certified timber, the supply is not yet sufficient, although group registration schemes are now available to encourage small businesses to register. The company is therefore optimistic that it may soon be able to sell all FSC-certified oak flooring.
As part of its environmental policy, Charltons only takes selected timbers from managed and sustainable forests and pressure-treated softwoods from farmed forests. And the company believes that it has a role in educating the public about the use of wood resources and the benefits of good woodland management.
“Timber is the best renewable resource for building we have, but the image of felling trees is unpopular. However, people need to be made aware that woodlands will be replanted today only if they are economically viable,” said Mr Charlton.
“The public are normally aware of the carbon sequestration benefits of growing trees, but are often unaware that the process reverses as the tree decays. It is essential to the future of our industry that people understand viable timber processing is necessary to supporting woodland growers.
“Unfortunately this argument does not yet feature prominently on the environmental agenda so it is up to each of us within the timber industry to help ensure that this message is communicated. For too long we have suffered the reputation as ‘the bad guys’ but, by explaining the environmental benefits, we can become the ‘good guys’ and further strengthen demand for natural wood products. Many of the products we produce will last for hundreds of years, so perhaps we should creating the perception for ourselves as being ‘carbon fixers’.”
Future focus
To survive and grow into the future, Peter Charlton says Charltons must continue to be “forward-thinking and innovative”.
“Trees today should be looked at as a total resource. When they get to the sawmill we should make the best use of them whether as timber, fuel for power or a garden mulch and preferably process on site to reduce unnecessary transport. The emerging technologies for power generation are as yet unproven but we will be keeping a close eye on them.”
