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The Somerset Levels is the most important wetland area in the UK, and its unique landscape provides the perfect conditions for willow growing. Basket-making willow (or 'withies') has been grown here for two centuries, and it is now the only area left where it is still cultivated for the production of baskets, furniture, garden items and high quality artists' charcoal. Here, indeed, is the heart of the English willow industry.
The Somerset Levels
The Willows & Wetlands
Visitor Centre
is the home of P. H. Coate & Son, founded by willow grower and merchant Robert Coate in 1819, and still run by the Coate family today. When Kathleen Boobyer, daughter of well-known willow grower and furniture maker Edmund Boobyer, married Percy Coate in 1940, the joining of the two families created the present company. At the Centre visitors will find a warm welcome and the story of the willow industry, from its early days to the current times. The wonderful selection of basketware is hand-crafted from Coate's own willow by their team of skilled basketmakers.
Throughout most of lowland Europe, wet grasslands have been drained and dried for intensive agriculture but on the Somerset Levels and Wetlands there is a mix of summer cattle grazing, hay-making and willow cutting for withies, coupled with the use of water-filled ditches instead of hedges. Tthe area supports numerous breeding birds, wintering waterfowl and wetland plants.
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This site is continually being updated - last major update 07th April 2008
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