Workshops & making
Hands-on woodworking, green wood craft and practical projects for adults, families and groups.
Explore Wanstone →Community Interest Company · East Kent
MAKING
SKILLS
COMMUNITY
Building confidence, connection and practical skills through making.
Real people · real making
People→Skills→Making→Confidence→Legacy
What Silverback is becoming
Practical skills, with people at the heart.
Silverback brings people together through woodworking, craft, community projects and hands-on learning across East Kent. From our Wanstone wood yard to commissioned builds and outdoor learning, the aim is simple: learn by doing, contribute something useful and leave people and places stronger.
“Every person has something to offer. Making together gives that something room to grow.”
Community projects
Useful builds and shared work that develop confidence, belonging and practical skills.
See projects →Family & forest learning
Forest School principles, fire, tools, creativity and nature-led learning across generations.
Explore Wild Ways →Corporate making days
Teams learn together while creating a legacy bench or another useful piece for community benefit.
Plan a team day →Structures & places
Roundhouses, seating, shelters and learning environments made with purpose.
Discuss a build →
Wanstone Court · St Margaret’s
Wanstone
The Chestnut Yard
A working place for carpentry, green woodworking, craft and shared making. Participants learn how to use tools, understand timber and turn raw material into something useful.
Three-legged stoolsBenchesMallets & maulsPractical tool skillsFamily makingGroup days
Selected work & stories
Real work. Real people. Community legacy.
The photographs should do much of the talking: people learning, building and leaving behind something that matters.
Community skills · DoverElms Vale Park bench project
School commission · View story ↗Priory Fields roundhouse
Community seating · Dover · View story ↗Charlton Green benches
Making togetherUseful things, made to last
Kent Downs Arts Trail · View story ↗Skills in the landscape
OutreachSilverback in action
Wild Ways
The outdoors is a strand — not the whole story.
Wild Ways holds Silverback’s Forest School, family learning and woodland work: cooking over open fire, den building, whittling, shave-horse work, fire-lighting and creative exploration. It keeps the natural roots of Silverback without allowing the whole organisation to be defined only by woodland activity.
Ask about Wild Ways
Corporate & social value
Build a team. Leave something useful behind.
Silverback’s corporate days move beyond a standard away-day. Teams learn practical skills together and can create legacy benches, seating or other agreed pieces for schools, community groups and shared spaces.
Talk about a legacy day
The people behind Silverback
Experience shared. Skills passed on.
A small leadership team with complementary strengths in outreach, skilled making and organisational development.
Pierre Woodward
Master Craftsman · Co-Director
Skilled making, timber work, structures and the craft knowledge that helps participants learn safely and well.
Cormac Martin
Community Outreach Practitioner · Artist · Forest School Instructor
Community-facing delivery, creative practice, outdoor learning and the development of Silverback’s practical programmes.
Sam Bennett
Director · Business Development & Bid Writing
Supporting partnerships, funding, organisational development and the next stage of Silverback’s growth.
The Silverback way
Tree → timber → tools → making → caring for what we create.
The website now connects craft, community and nature as one story: materials have value, skills can be shared, and what we make should strengthen the people and places around us.
Start a conversation
What could we make together?
Talk to Silverback about Wanstone workshops, community programmes, Wild Ways, corporate social-value projects or a commissioned structure.