The Countryside Agency turned to Shropshire-based Border Hardwood Ltd for help when it experienced difficulty sourcing timber for a replacement ferry in Shropshire.

The project for the River Severn Crossing at Hampton Loade required timber up to 7m long and 400mm wide which was not readily available.

Border Hardwood’s managing director Charlie Bevan-Jones said: “We love a challenge and we rose to it, supplying cut and dried English oak from home-grown stocks for the decks and the mast.

“However, we had to draw on our European connections to source the extra-long boatskin larch which was required for the frame in seven metre lengths.

&#8220We love a challenge and we rose to it, supplying cut and dried English oak from home-grown stocks for the decks and the mast”

Border Hardwood managing director Charlie Bevan-Jones

“One of our French suppliers was able to supply the boatskin larch in the required lengths from trees they had harvested from just outside Paris following fierce gales two years ago.”

The new ferry was built at Blists Hill Victorian Museum using traditional methods.