Famed for its beautiful colours and figure, quality yew wood is a sought after commodity for wood turners. The Woodturning Shop has been lucky to have had access to a bulk load of Hampshire Yew recently and have been busy processing it into blanks . . .

One of the hardest timbers of softwood species, yew trees (taxus baccata) are incredibly long lived with any individually tree not being classed as ‘ancient’ till it is 900 years old! Often found in church yards and southern England, yew is a native species and is characterised by rich orange, red and purple tones.

Often beautifully figured, yew is also known for its inclusions such as knots, bark, fissures and faults. It can be equally a challenge and a joy to turn when care and thought is put into how the final piece will look. A skilled turner will be able to include voids and features in a piece to create something truly stunning. As with all turning, care should be taken to protect yourself when turning yew, particularly when sanding.

We first mentioned we have a load of Yew a few weeks ago and published some posts on social media of the timber being processed. Since then, we have received many requests for blanks being made available online for customers who live too far away for them to make the journey to have a look at the stock actually here in the shop. See the gallery at the bottom of this page.

As a trial, we have uploaded a hand picked a small selection of bowl, spindle and pen blanks to the website for online ordering (UK only. Sorry). The blank you see in the picture is the blank you will receive. Click the ‘Select Options’ button below to see the initial stock available online. More may be added later.