These two members of the Evans family (owners of the sawmill) normally work at sister business Mellington Hall Hotel and Holiday Home Park. Alex came in for a day to cover holidays helping out at an extremely busy sawmill with some fork lift driving (for which he is fully trained) whilst his younger brother Sam… Read more »
Category: News
The 1000th load goes into our Timber Treatment Centre
Just over a year since it became fully operational, this is the 1000th load of timber being sent into our new fully automated Timber Treatment Centre which is one of the most advanced of its kind in the UK. Built at a cost of £2.75 million, the new facility not only dramatically increases the efficiency… Read more »
The finished colour of treated timber
We’re often asked about the different colours of treated timber and these two packs illustrate things nicely. The posts in the two packs are of the same timber cut the same day but treated two weeks apart. The pack on the left goes a warm honey colour in the sun exactly as it is supposed… Read more »
The Winning Post!
Incite Fitness was founded by Neill Timms in 2009 and started solely as a YouTube channel, with calisthenics tutorials and bodyweight workouts. The website was only a calisthenics park finder and used to sell personal training services. In 2013 the local council removed the bars that Neill and his students used to train on so… Read more »
The Winning Post!
Incite Fitness was founded by Neill Timms in 2009 and started solely as a YouTube channel, with calisthenics tutorials and bodyweight workouts. The website was only a calisthenics park finder and used to sell personal training services. In 2013 the local council removed the bars that Neill and his students used to train on so… Read more »
Within sight of our sawmill and home town
Here’s another sight to lift the spirits. It’s taken at Bury Ditches, home to one of the best-preserved hill forts in the country which dates from around 500BC. It’s located within sight of the mill, deep in the beautiful Shropshire hills. Bishop’s Castle and the Mill are at bottom left, then following the hills round… Read more »
A new day brings new hope
This was the scene yesterday at out forest holding at Aberhosen in mid Wales: a glorious spring morning which seems full of possibility at a time of great uncertainty for us all. Taking each day as it comes seems less difficult in a setting like this with such a wonderful sunrise. The felling and extraction… Read more »
Back at the cutting edge
Forestry and sawmilling have been classed as essential operations during the pandemic so having taken an extended Easter break we’re back at the cutting edge today in the knowledge that we can cut timber and keep our workforce safe. Timber of course is used to make pallets and packaging on and in which food and… Read more »
Like Parliament, we’re closing a little early for Easter
In the light of the current situation surrounding the Coronavirus outbreak we have taken measures to safeguard our employees and will be closing the site at Bishops Castle from close of business on 27th April. Our intention is to re-open just after Easter on Tuesday 14th April, circumstances permitting. Of course, we will be reviewing… Read more »
A sight for saw(!) eyes
There’s no better sight for a sawmiller than trailers all loaded with timber ready for delivery all over the UK. Every cubic metre of it was grown in the UK, some of it on our own forests, part of the more than 80,000 cubic metres we process eac…
The new chip store is working exactly as it’s designed to
In order to better manage the peaks and troughs in demand for woodchips we’ve constructed a new store here at our mill in Bishop’s Castle. These two pictures show it in operation with a chipper outside working on undersized logs and feeding chips into the store. You can see the operation in a video clip… Read more »
Lovely morning, lovely load!
Maybe we should get out more but some days just start perfectly: a cracking, bright frosty morning here in Bishop’s Castle and a trailer load of treated timber ready to leave us for the customer. What more could anyone ask for?
A distinct improvement
These two pictures were taken almost exactly two years apart. Above is the demolition of the old, run-down buildings where, as we see in the picture below, our new Timber Treatment Centre now stands. At the right of the bottom picture you can see the line of posts for the fencing we’re currently erecting to… Read more »
Keeping our neighbours’ feet dry!
We’ve been tidying up the boundary of the site where our new Timber Treatment Centre stands, both to reduce the impact of our operations on neighbours and to present a tidier face to them. As part of this work we’d thought we’d give the muddy footpath which runs alongside the boundary a top dressing of… Read more »
Air dried Larch
Here’s another benefit to increased storage capacity at our mill: 3.6m larch boards kept in the dry ready and waiting for swift delivery. Larch of course is incredibly durable and has become very popular for use as cladding as well as being a traditional material for fencing. Delivered in bundles of 160, there’s plenty more… Read more »
All chip-shape and Bristol fashion
It’s a process of constant improvement here at Ranfords both in how we mill and treat the timber and how we make certain that we get the most value out of every bit iof timber we handle. This newly completed chip store (complete with Great Brtish Timber Yorkshire Boarding) means we can store more material… Read more »
Frosty morning, Bishop’s Castle
We count ourselves most fortunate to live and work in such beautiful surroundings, never more so than on mornings like this. Here in Bishop’s Castle it’s bright and sunny with the air like Champagne. The biomass boiler and kilns in our mill are steaming away and after what at times was a stormy week all… Read more »
A picture perfect acoustic installation
As the very last of the concrete storage area around our Timber Treatment Centre is poured (above) we’re cracking on with the installation of the acoustic fencing barrier which will reduce noise which might drift over from our long-established sawmill to the relatively new homes nearby. Panels like these are used throughout the UK near… Read more »
Keeping the noise down for the neighbours
Our business is in a small town which has grown and spread in recent years so that houses now stand quite close to the sawmill (which has been here for well over 100 years!) in what once were fields. We are keen to minimise the impact of our activites on our neighbours so, the new… Read more »
Ill winds
With weather warnings issued by the Met office today it seems a good time to remember the Great Storm of 1987 which occurred on the night of 15–16 October. Hurricane-force winds battered England, France and the Channel Islands as a severe depression in the Bay of Biscay moved northeast. As well as causing fatalities and… Read more »