Within the partnership are a number of experienced international trainers and teachers. A sub-team were formed at the very first meeting of PARABOW in Slovakia in May 1998 and consisted of….

• Martin Clark – a former head of the UK’s National School of Forestry and a lecturer on B.A Heritage management who is a Governor at a Secondary school.
• Zuzana Kmetova – an English language, forestry and environmental teacher from Banska Bystrica who graduated from the Zvolen Technical University (M.Sc.)
• Peter Kaisser – a practical environmental skills trainer with Dübener Heide Naturpark in Germany where he specializes in sustainable use of local products in countryside management.
• Matti Weigelius – a lecturer and log house specialist from Kuru College of Forestry in Finland and Director of the log house company Pirrkaveisto Oy.

This small team has a broad range of skills, knowledge and experience and very importantly, is able to look at the value of training at all levels, i.e., from primary school children up to higher level students wanting to sit for degrees and older people coming back into education through a process of ‘lifelong learning’.

It was always intended that PARABOW would involve people who would fall into all these educational categories and that at the end of the project, it would leave behind training material and curriculum that was ‘ready to use’ at all these levels. In order to give people what they want in terms of training and education, PARABOW has tested out ideas on a very broad range of people through a number of ‘training actions’…..

In June 1998, a group of primary schoolchildren from Plumbland in Cumbria had a series of ‘days in the woods’ where they learned about the historic use of timber and finished the day by building a charcoal burners shelter from ash uprights and woven hazel wattle. The amazing thing was to see their natural innate skill in doing this with minimal supervision. One little boy began collecting moss to plug up the gaps in the wattle and a little girl installed some propping timbers when one wall started to sag – they did these things without being told !

In August 1999, a group of 15 German young workers with an interest im forestry and the environment were involved in the design and construction of a sauna with a log house exterior and woven willow inner wall. They put into use their existing knowledge about structures and the properties of timber. The practical training and demonstration was placed into constraints of only being able to use natural products and traditional tools. One young man proved to be the best willow weaver, despite never having done it before; within two hours he was not only weaving the inner wall to be functional but was experimenting with patterns and bringing art into his work . So it must have been with the Celts, Vikings and Saxons – some people were naturally skilled and talented and needed less training than others. The really skilled ones did their work quickly and then had the luxury of being able to experiment, try new things and indulge in personal expression – this is how ‘art’ must have started in prehistoric times.

A Slovakian graduate of architecture joined the PARABOW project in order to spend some 6 weeks comparing these two ancient wooden churches. The young lady graduate visited both sites and carried out a comparison which focused not just on the structure and building technique but also the kind and quality of repair. The social aspects of the two churches were also compared – their histories, development, the wars, strife, famine and fire that they had endured and witnessed. The people who lived in the area, who cared for the church and who was counted amongst the congregation each Sunday all were part of the study which was trying to determine the overall importance of the ancient wooden buildings. The final part of the work involved drawing up a simple action plan for securing the future of both buildings.

In July 1999 a group of English, Scottish and Irish heritage management students learned how to use an adze, crosscut saw and ancient wood chisels under instruction from PARABOW carpenters in England and Denmark. They had learned in college about how to manage heritage but had no practical reconstruction skills. They started by learning about trees in the forest and selecting those that could give useful timbers for vernacular buildings. They felled (with a foresters help !) the trees, dragged them out of the forest and then cut and shaped them before incorporating them in horizontal log walls. They built doors from wattle work and used natural fibres for binding, etc. The key was to allow them to experiment and try their design skills out. After two weeks of intensive training, they went to Denmark, dressed as Vikings and learned the Viking technique of building with oak.

In Finland the history of building with wood has not utilized small underwood and wattle weaving – because of the very easy supply of large wood and whole trees. This situation was not the same in Saxon and Viking Europe further south when even from Roman times there was a shortage of timber. The Finns came to Denmark, England, Ireland and Scotland to learn the method. The did some ‘coppicing’ and tested the different species for flexion and tension properties and then had a go at weaving walls, fences, the surround for an earth dam and roofing and flooring panels. It was interesting that they then decided that a combination of moss for insulation and birch bark for waterproofing and a turf finish for roofing was appropriate. The result was a vibrant combination of middle and western European heritage building combined with some ideas and techniques from the far north.

You will see from this great range of training actions that PARABOW was determined to follow certain principles, the training action and product had to be…..

1. Multi-disciplinary – with people from all walks of life and many different subject areas, joining together to lean and develop ideas together.

1. Multi-national – a mix of nationalities from across Europe comparing and contasting techniques and focusing on links and thinking how these might have developed in ancient times.

1. Multi-level – practical, vocational and technical students and trainees working with undergraduates, graduates and higher level students.

1. Multi-age – people looking at the subject of ancient wooding buildings from different age perspectives from primary school through to lifelong learning.