Skep Making with Chris Park
- 9th Jul 2027
- 9:30am - 4:30pm
Spend a summer's day learning to make a traditional straw beehive with Chris Park, one of the UK's leading skep makers. You'll work in the open air beside Heligan's historic bee boles, the wall recesses where skeps once sheltered from the Cornish weather.
Before the modern wooden hive, the skep was how most people in Britain kept bees. Today there are no full-time skep makers left in the UK, and the craft is on the Heritage Crafts Red List of endangered crafts. This is a rare chance to learn it from a master, in a garden where it truly belongs.
You'll go home with your own partly built skep, plus the tools and materials to finish it.
What you'll do
Chris will guide you through lipwork, the age-old technique of coiling and binding straw into a continuous spiral. You'll learn how to prepare and soak the straw, bind each round tightly, and gradually shape the dome of the hive.
It's a calm, hands-on day with a real rhythm to it as you enjoy the steady satisfaction of watching your skep take shape. As you work, Chris will share stories from the long history and folklore of beekeeping.
The workshop takes place in the gardens, so visitors passing by may stop to watch and ask questions. It's a lovely chance to share an old craft with new people. No experience is needed, just patience and a willingness to get stuck in.
Chris supplies all the materials and tools. At the end of the day, you'll take home your part-made skep along with everything you need to finish it at your own pace.
Skeps and the Heligan bee boles
A skep is simply an upturned basket with a small entrance near the base for the bees. For centuries, skeps were the familiar beehive of the British countryside. They still appear today on honey jars and in heraldry.
Heligan's bee boles are set into a tall, early 19th-century brick wall in the gardens. They rise in three tiers of arched recesses, each built to shelter a straw skep from wind and rain. Unusually for southern England, Heligan's boles have wooden doors. Gardeners closed them in winter and hung hessian curtains when the weather turned very cold.
Making a skep beside these boles brings the craft back to the very place it was once part of daily garden life.
Essential Information Please bring:
• A bucket
• Waterproof trousers or an apron (straw work can be wet)
• A pair of scissors
• Your own lunch and drinks, or you're welcome to purchase your lunch from one of our catering outlets.
The workshop runs in the open gardens, so visitors may stop to watch, and photos may be taken on the day. Please dress for the weather, with sun protection or a layer for cooler spells.
Places are limited to ten, so we recommend booking early.
Chris Park
Is a leading expert on bee skeps and teaches skep making across the country and beyond. He lives on an organic farm in the Vale of the White Horse, Oxfordshire. His work is wide and varied, from arts, craft, ancient technologies, experimental archaeology and educational projects to eco-building, professional storytelling, writing, folk music and raising the awareness of the heritage of beekeeping. He is a founder member of the Beekeeping History Trust, a skep beekeeper, skep-maker, apitherapist and a practicing Druid. Chris lives and breathes the ancient relationship between humans and honeybees.
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