HAVING lived in the Wye Valley for six years, 47-year-old Eon Graves is an artisan carpenter and joiner for the past decade-and-a-half, writes Will Luker.

Describing his home Ross-on-Wye community as a terrific part of the world with a good depth of buildings, beside a beautiful river, he has provided bespoke adaptations to a variety of local buildings and many further afield.

Based at Moat Farm, near Newent for the past eight years, his business All Good in the Wood is perfectly situated and ideal for sourcing trees to create some breathtaking structures, the Recycling Shop in the town plus Stock Wizards nearby are also places which Eon uses for finding great material to work with.

A sustainable and creative timber merchant with a sawmill, English sweet chestnut and English oak are the trees he uses and reuses. Any unused material can be used for other creations but the most important part of what Eon does is a love for creativity.

Creating beams, cladding, decking, fencing, gates, tree houses, sheds, glamping pods and much more, looking at pictures of Eon’s work is something to be admired. All items are handmade and bespoke.

Eon, who has been doing this type of work for over a decade, said: “This is the work I enjoy. It’s what I do. The work is often difficult due to the complexity of its structure, the preparation involved, and the physics.

“Unfortunately, there is not a lot of money in what I do, but I feel that I am having fun with design. I like building stuff, and I just love trees. Sweet chestnut are trees that have the most longevity and every building I create lasts a long time."

Eon’s philosophy is that his work is 100 per cent sustainable and he suggests this is where there is a serious message to be talked about – being an ethical business keeping climate change in mind.

“Up-cycling unused material is important to me,” he adds: “I try to avoid importing products from outside the UK. The trees grow back, I am carbon negative to help the planet and there is no room for exploiting new resources.

“Being an ethical creator is at the heart of what I do. Creating something beautiful to make people go wow matters to me and I feel the country relies on imports too much, the costs of haulage are bad.”

By keeping the transportation of trees local it means less miles for vehicles to reduce emissions. “Creativity gives you a sense of purpose and is the soul of what I do, Eon said. It does not matter if nobody else likes my work, if I enjoy what I do and customers appreciate it, I am happy.”

Eon explains that he operates a full-circle process, whereby all the materials are used ‘from tree to dust’.

Rough sawn and planed timber can be made into battens, beams, cladding and decking. Clefting and green woodworking tools are used to create handmade, bespoke items such as fencing gates, panels picket and roof shingles.

When all the usable timber has been used, the off cuts and character wood is stored to dry out to create bespoke structures such as tree houses, glamping pods when the wood has dried. He also builds compost toilets, garden rooms, insulated garden studios, sheds and bothies.

Eon concluded: “And the final piece of the All Good in the Wood jigsaw? When stitched together, they create handcrafted sustainable buildings as if from a fairytale. Anything that cannot be used creatively is put aside for firewood, kindling or woodchip. The rest is just sawdust.”