Carpenters Wood – Bodgers
A bodger was a skilled craftsman specialising in chair-making, particularly the production of chair legs and other turned components. These artisans worked within the dense beech woods of the region, a setting ideal for their craft due to the abundance of beech trees, whose hardwood was well suited to furniture making.
A skilled woodworker in a bodger camp shapes a wooden seat for a chair
Bodgers did not typically produce entire chairs; instead, they were part of a collaborative supply chain, focusing on crafting the turned parts that would later be assembled by furniture makers in workshops or factories, especially in towns like High Wycombe, known for its chair-making industry.
The work of a bodger required expertise, agility, and efficiency. They operated in makeshift outdoor workshops deep within the woods, often near where the beech trees were felled. Their tools included pole lathes, powered manually by a foot pedal and a springy sapling, which allowed the wood to rotate for precision turning.
Using these tools, they shaped cylindrical forms, creating components such as legs, stretchers, and spindles. The process involved roughing out green (freshly cut) timber and quickly shaping it before it dried and became more difficult to work with.
Bodgers were highly mobile, moving their operations to follow the availability of wood, and often lived a semi-nomadic lifestyle. They worked seasonally, balancing their craft with other rural jobs such as farming or hedge-laying. Their craft was vital to the furniture trade, bridging the gap between raw material and finished product.
While there are no identifiable archaeological remains specifically tying bodgers to Carpenters Wood, the name and its location in close proximity to the industrial furniture-making hub of High Wycombe makes it likely that such activity occurred here.
You can learn a lot more about the bodgers in Alice Dean’s essay and our pages on the rural industries and crafts of the Chilterns.
Heritage Trails
This is one of four ‘Routes to the Past’ circular walks, made possible by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. You can find the other trails on the main Chilterns Interactive Map, under routes.
Each trail has four waymarkers with unique stories to tell – Find the other Carpenter’s Wood trail markers and scan their stories at the locations shown here.
Chilterns Heritage and Archaeology Partnership
Plan your trip to the Chilterns!
