Dominic discovered green woodworking in a windowless shed with an anvil and a rusty blacksmiths vice outside. It was only a few hundred yards from the sea on the rugged north coast of Cornwall and the salt air gnawed at the cast iron relentlessly. Flaky green paint curled from the door of the shed like crispy seaweed in the summer sun.
Behind the door, wood shavings hung from cobwebs and the fresh scents of Ash and Hazel vied with the stale smell of spent engine oil. Beneath the layers of sawdust, filings, dust and grime you could just about make out the shape of a creaky old lathe, its rubber belt perished, the tool rest pitted but shiny with use.
And there he stood, as a young man, transfixed on the process of turning logs into translucent ribbons, his mind time-travelling through the life of the tree as the years were peeled back, one growth ring at a time.
This is where his love of working with wood in its fresh natural state began.
20 years later, Cornish Woodsmith is an expression of what it has become.
