The birch besom and the winter wood

A besom is the old country broom: a long hazel handle with a fan of birch twigs bound tightly round the top. It sweeps a yard, a path, a workshop floor or a heap of autumn leaves better than almost anything modern, and making one sits neatly where coppice management meets green woodcraft. The twigs come from birch scrub cut in the dormant months, the handle from a hazel rod cut and seasoned the winter before, and the binding from wire or willow. Very little needs buying, and nothing needs plugging in.

If you have ever cut birch scrub on a heathland edge or thinned a crowded birch stool, you already have the raw material. Turning it into a broom takes an afternoon, a pair of stout gloves and a little patience.

Cutting birch twigs in winter

Birch twigs are cut between leaf fall and bud burst – roughly December to early March, and ideally before the sap begins to move in February. Wood cut while dormant bends without snapping, dries slowly and keeps its spring. Summer-cut twigs are brittle and make a poor, short-lived brush.

Silver birch (Betula pendula) and downy birch (Betula pubescens) both work well. Look for birch growing as scrub, on heathland edges, along woodland rides, or on a coppice stool that is due a cut. Cutting there is genuinely useful: birch regenerates vigorously, and regular cutting keeps a stool young and stops it shading out the ground flora beneath.

• Aim for twigs about 6–10 mm thick at the butt and 90–120 cm long, reasonably straight and free of heavy side shoots.
• Avoid anything thicker than your little finger; it will not fold into the collar.
• Cut cleanly with secateurs, loppers or a billhook, and leave the stool tidy with no torn stubs.
• Sort as you go – a pile of long twigs for the body, a smaller pile of shorter ones for the outer fan.

Tie the twigs into loose bundles of thirty or so and store them under cover, off the ground, where they stay dry but not bone-dry. A coppice rotation of seven to fifteen years suits birch well, so if you cut a stool this winter, mark it and come back when the regrowth is long and whippy again.

The hazel handle and the twig bundle

Hazel makes the classic handle, and with good reason: it is strong, light, straight-growing and pleasant in the hand. Cut a rod 1.2–1.5 m long and 3–4 cm across at the butt, season it for a year under cover, then peel the bark while it is still green or leave it to dry and sand it later. A natural crook at the top is a bonus – it gives you somewhere to hang the broom.

To build the head, take around 100–140 twigs and lay them in a bundle with all the butt ends one way and the tips the other. Bind a temporary cord around the bundle about 10 cm down from the butt ends. Now push the hazel handle down into the centre of the bundle until its end sits just below that cord; the twigs will fold back down over the handle. That fold, gathered tightly, becomes the head of the besom, with the twig tips fanning out below as the sweeping face.

Binding the head

Tightness is everything. A loose besom sheds twigs within a week and never sweeps properly. The old makers used a simple brake to hold the work: a loop of rope with a wooden foot stirrup, hitched to a bench or beam. You stand in the loop, take a turn of cord around the bundle and lean your weight back to compress the head while your hands wrap the binding. A second pair of hands works just as well.

Galvanised wire of about 2 mm is the practical modern binding and lasts for years. Willow withies, soaked overnight until pliable, are the traditional alternative and look wonderful, though they need to be kept dry. Either way, three bands are usual: a top band just below the end of the handle, a middle band, and a lower band that captures the fold and holds the fan in shape. Wind each band two or three times, twist the ends tightly with pliers and tuck the sharp tails in where they cannot catch your hands.

Trimming and finishing

Stand the finished besom upright on a hard floor and let it settle. Walk round it and cut the tips level, a handful at a time, with sharp secateurs or shears. Work gradually and keep the face slightly domed, so the centre twigs sit a touch shorter and the whole fan touches the ground evenly. It is easy to take more off; impossible to put it back.

Finish the handle by sanding it smooth and oiling it with boiled linseed oil, and trim the fan to the length you want – around 40–50 cm of brush below the binding suits most work. A finished besom weighs very little, balances in the hand and stands up on its own against a wall, which is how you will know it is bound true.

Sweeping and storage

A besom is a coarse broom, and that is its virtue. It shifts wet leaves, gravel, cobbles, wood shavings, yard muck and garden debris without clogging. Take short, flicking strokes and let the twigs do the work rather than pressing down hard, which only wears the tips.

• Hang the besom up, head clear of the floor, somewhere dry and airy.
• Never leave it standing in the damp; the wire will rust and the birch will soften and splay.
• If the binding slackens, add a fresh band of wire before the twigs start working loose.

Treated well, a birch besom will sweep for eight or ten years, and when at last the twigs are worn to stubs, it goes on the fire and you cut another bundle of birch in the depths of winter. It is a small, satisfying cycle: woodland cut, wood worked, wood used, and the stool left to grow again.