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 »
Category: Ransfords
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 »
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 »
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 »
It’s that time of year again!
Our home town of Bishop’s Castle is a small and close-knit community in Shropshire close to the border with Wales. It’s the sort of place which still has a kind of unwritten seasonal calendar on which, of course, Christmas features prominently. So, the picture shows one of the first acts in the Town’s preparations as… Read more »
We’re making good progress on the new chip store
We’ve had more than our share of downpours here recently but enough dry weather to be able to crack on with our new chip store. The roof is half on and the wall panels are all in. Next we need to put some Yorkshire Boarding on. Good job we know a good sawmill producing Great… Read more »
Visit by students at Bishop’s Castle Community College
Lightfoot Enterprises and the Community College, Bishop’s Castle (the secondary school which serves the town and surrounding villages) have been working together to introduce pupils to the delights of woodlands. As part of the College’s enrichment programme, a group of Year 7 pupils have been going into the woods to experience the richness & diversity… Read more »
The investment never stops
Those who know Ransfords well will know that we’re always looking for ways to make the business more efficient and more effective. It’s good for our customers and so its good for us too. An investment a few years back enabled us to start producing dry chips from what would otherwise be waste from our… Read more »
Sound solutions in Steel City for Heras
Since its formation in 1952 Heras has grown into Europe’s leading end-to-end supplier of perimeter protection solutions. It operate in 6 countries and employs more than 1200 highly skilled staff serving blue-chip customers across business, community and industry sectors. Their aim is to be recognised as Europe’s premium perimeter protection brand, proven by reliability, commitment… Read more »
No post-brexit supply log-jams with Great British Timber from Ransfords
Even now the exact terms on which the UK will be leaving the EU are still unclear, so there’s a great deal of uncertainty about delays to imported supplies of a whole host of goods including timber. Great British Timber from Ransfords is grown here, felled here, and milled here so there will be no… Read more »
The best time to fix the roof is when the sun is shining…
…or so the old saying goes. Easier said than done in recent weeks when most days have brought rain, followed by showers, followed by long periods of drizzle. The good news is though that the job is nearly done: a new roof on the vast building that holds our main sawline with only finishing touches… Read more »
Look what we did
There aren’t many sawmills with the skills and ability let alone the willingness to cut posts like this: 200mm square post with a tenon cut at 100mm square. The mortise is in the support for the roof of a car port so precision was the order of the day. Whilst most of our production is… Read more »
It’s all about teamwork
One of the features of our business is the close relationships we have with other family businesses in the area. One such is David Ford Transport Services who regularly haul logs from the forest to us and finished product from us to the customer. When things get busy we’re not averse to using our Terberg… Read more »
Strength in numbers
Our mill is laid out in such a way that unnecessary movement of product is avoided. The material flows from one stage to another in the most efficient way possible. Of course some movement is unavoidable and, in the end, trailers have to be loaded for the despatch of finished product. These three beauties join… Read more »
Ransfords mountain bikers on top of the world
We were very pleased recently to co-sponsor (with Euroforest) the Forestry Industry Mountain Bike Challenge, even more pleased to take part with two teams from Ransfords, and simply delighted to take first and second place. The challenge involved seven timed stages on a 14 mile course at Llendegla in Wales – pretty gruelling stuff against… Read more »
Independence day? We have our own anniversary to celebrate!
It is 41 years to the day since the Evans Family of Bishop’s Castle stepped in to save the sawmill from bankruptcy. Alan Evans and his older brother Brian bought the mill for just £100 but along with the mill came £1.5 million of debts to the bank and trade creditors. Every penny of that… Read more »
A fantastic start to the year
After a really busy January and February here’s a cracking start to March as we load 7 trucks today for Monday delivery. This one is being loaded by Martin Jones with redwood posts all either pointed or weather topped. Fantastic!
Picture perfect acoustic fencing…despite the weather.
Work on improving the A465 or the Heads of the Valleys Road was first mooted as long ago as 1990 but not started until 2005. Almost 30 years after the need for improvement was indentified, it’s great to see this remarkable engineering project getting closer to final completion – and it’s good to be a… Read more »
A closer look inside our new Timber Treatment Centre
This sequence shows untreated timber being loaded outside the new Centre then being moved across the floor towards the autoclave. As the untreated timber enters the autoclave a treated load which has been ejected earlier and left to drain is moved back across the floor to exit and then be stacked prior to delivery to the… Read more »
The forestry century
This year sees the centenary of the passing of the first Forestry Act which established the Forestry Commission and, in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, recognised the strategic importance of forestry and home grown timber. Confor will be marking the centenary throughout the year and has produced this logo to mark it…. Read more »