Billy Souter is a primitive skills specialist based in Derbyshire who teaches courses including hide tanning, flint knapping and various other primitive technology’s and bushcraft skills. He also works as a freelance instructor providing courses for well respected bushcraft schools across the UK.

With over 40 years of experience in the great outdoors. I bring a lifetime of knowledge on camping and outdoor equipment.

I am the founder of Back2Basics, a global online community dedicated to all things outdoors. From camping and hiking to survival skills and equipment reviews. Back2Basics serves as a hub for enthusiasts and professionals around the world.

In addition to Back2Basics I regularly produce reviews of hikes and equipment sent to me. My approach is honest, hands on and grounded from decades of practical experience.

I am also currently (under the tuition of Kyt Lyn Walken )learning the art of mantracking with a view of becoming one of the few professionally qualified mantracking instructors in the UK.

Martin is a highly skilled basketmaker and world renowned wood worker. Martin's influences are varied as he has travelled around the world to learn basket making techniques. Working for many years as a wildlife ranger martin has a wide knowledge of the natural history of the UK.

FERAL stands for Feral Experimental Archaeology Research At Large. We are a group of people united by our active involvement in experimental archaeology research and public presentation. The group includes Prof Linda Hurcombe - Exeter University; Sally Pointer - heritage education; Jalea Ward - Slightly warped; Martin and Michelle Hazell - Martin Hazell and Mr the Creature; Caz and Phil Loader - Katas Historical makes. Together with our helpers we aim to explain experimental archaeology, traditional crafts, and bushcraft.

Jalea Ward has a Masters degree in Experimental Archaeology, specialising in ancient weaving technologies, and created Slightly Warped Looms to fill a gap in the re-enactment market for looms. She also teaches workshops to share her knowledge at a range of locations.

Sally has a degree in Archaeology and Old English, an MSc in Experimental Archaeology, a C&G in Training and Education and is currently an Honorary Associate Research Fellow at Exeter University.

Sally spent over a decade managing a hands-on gallery for the National Museum Wales and went freelance in 2010 to pursue her interests in heritage education, offering training, research services and the provision of high quality replica objects inspired by archaeology and history to museums, film, theatre and re-enactors worldwide

She is the author of books and papers on the history of cosmetics, herbs, and costume, makes YouTube videos on traditional skills and crafts, regularly appears on TV and Radio and is also a knitwear designer and avid hedge-botherer.

Her work is often assisted by a fat orange cat called Tesla.

Sarah Day AKA Memma is an experimental archaeologist with almost 2 decades of experience in bushcraft and primitive survival. Her previous experience includes working for Ray Mears for 13 years AND Will Lord of the Stone-Age for over 3 years.

Jess Shaw is an experimental archaeologist and the workshop coordinator for Butser Ancient Farm, a centre for research and hands-on learning. From doing  archaeological excavations around the UK and deep in the Mexican jungle, teaching children heritage skills, working with Memma the Cavewoman, to building and maintaining roundhouses; Jess now uses her varied experiences to collaborate with craftspeople and heritage skills experts to design and deliver workshops at Butser Ancient Farm. 

One of the longest established schools of Bushcraft in the UK, established 1995. Recognised by the Institute for Outdoor Learning (IOL) as an Approved Provider and assessor of Training for the Bushcraft Competency Certificate.

Pippin & Gile is an award-winning bushcraft school delivering real, field-tested skills with precision and depth, in a relaxed and inclusive atmosphere. We teach our wilderness skills, from a position of experience and in a way that sticks, sharing knowledge that is tried and tested in the UK and overseas. Our course sizes are purposefully small, with no alcohol, the focus is on the skills, and their applications, and ensuring that your learning is the best it can be. Our South London site is easily reached, yet ultimately immersive. What sets us apart is the result: not just skills gained, but a lasting shift in how you read the landscape. You’ll leave more capable, more resourceful and we promise a walk through the woods will never be the same again.

With a “Level 4 Certificate in Bushcraft Leadership” Christopher believes that Bushcraft is the practical process of learning from the environment you find yourself in, adapting the knowledge and training you have to it and living comfortably in it by becoming part of that environment.

Sonia Winder is a Chartered Forester and a Chartered Environmentalist, living in the western Brecon Beacons in Wales.  She's been managing trees and woodlands for over 30 years and is passionate about trees big and small, spiky and smooth.  There's a lot trees can tell us about our environment, and they are perfectly adapted.   Come and learn a little about tree ID, what trees can do for us, and what trees can tell us whether we're tracking, doing bushcraft, or just out walking the dog!

Operating throughout the globe with instructors delivering expeditions to Kenya, South Africa, Croatia, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Sweden and much more. UK based, their large team (headed by founder Jason Ingamells) delivers courses from half-day workshops to the well renowned 2 year Bushcraft course, The Woodland Wayer.

Polly Bennett graduated from City & Guilds of London Art School in 2018 and in 2019 completed The Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers Decorative Surfaces Fellowship. She is an Honorary Freeman of The Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers, and a member of the Wilderness Art Collective, a group of creatives whose work discusses the natural world. 

Polly is an environmental artist “portraying the land, with the land” through traditional craftsmanship, using locally sourced materials that guide her process. Looking at site-specific historical context, combined with a museological approach to materials, she collaborates with, and investigates the surrounding rural environment to re-visualise her experience within it. The concluding work recollects the explored environment as a souvenir.

Polly is a natural pigment collector and maker. In 2020 she founded her company POLBEN’s Pigment, where she celebrates and sells sustainable artist’s pigments and inks created from natural materials sourced by herself.

Roger employs a friendly, confident and hands on approach to Bushcraft training and you’ll often find Bison Bushcraft expeditions to remote wilderness areas such as Northern Canada or The Rocky Mountains, where everybody involved truly lives off the land.

He is also an accomplished knifemaker with worldwide sales and has designed and made knives for other companies and organisation. Roger is also the designer and producer of all the hand made kit and clothing from Bison Bushcraft

The Bushcraft PPG was founded in 2007 with the aim of promoting best practice in a growing industry. Our main aim was to ensure practitioners delivering short, half day sessions of bushcraft skills, were sufficiently competent to deliver those sessions safely. To achieve this we developed the Bushcraft Competency Certificate, which assesses a practitioners ability in a range of bushcraft skills. We also developed a series of workshops where Bushcraft PPG members, IOL members, and all comers can learn new skills and competencies.

Our aims today remain the same. To that end we are aiming to offer two Bushcraft PPG conferences a year, providing a chance for members to network and upskill. We have developed the Bushcraft Competency Award and the Bushcraft Competency Diploma to stand either side of the established Certificate, as well as a Level 2 Bushcraft Skills Award. The awards continue to grow in recognition and take-up and we will support and evolve them as required.The Bushcraft PPG was founded in 2007 with the aim of promoting best practice in a growing industry. Our main aim was to ensure practitioners delivering short, half day sessions of bushcraft skills, were sufficiently competent to deliver those sessions safely. To achieve this we developed the Bushcraft Competency Certificate, which assesses a practitioners ability in a range of bushcraft skills. We also developed a series of workshops where Bushcraft PPG members, IOL members, and all comers can learn new skills and competencies.

Our aims today remain the same. To that end we are aiming to offer two Bushcraft PPG conferences a year, providing a chance for members to network and upskill. We have developed the Bushcraft Competency Award and the Bushcraft Competency Diploma to stand either side of the established Certificate, as well as a Level 2 Bushcraft Skills Award. The awards continue to grow in recognition and take-up and we will support and evolve them as required. institute@outdoor-learning.org 01228 564580 https://www.outdoor-learning.org/Do you have Public liability insurance for the event, give details?

Based in the Lincolnshire area offering a wide variety of engaging bushcraft and outdoor experiences for all. Our permanent team are Matthew Chapman and Maria Charles who bring together a wide skill set to make your experience challenging, inspiring and fun whilst maintaining high levels of safety and well-being.

Axe & Paddle was founded by Steve Le Say and his wife, Kirsty, in 2012. Steve teaches primitive skills and crafts such as Fur and Buckskin Tanning, Friction Fire Lighting and Moccasin Making and many other crafts. He also makes and replicates many primitive tools and artefacts, from bone tools to birch bark pots and rabbit fur gloves to sinew backed short bows.

Official European representative for Hull's Tracking School (Virginia USA), established in 2018 and led by Kyt Lyn Walken, mantracking expert, instructor and certified antipoaching ranger. The Way of Tracking provides mantracking classes all over Europe to SAR, Army and LE personnel as well as forensic consultancy.

Paul Bradley aka 'Bardster' of Bison Bushcraft is a consumate craftsmanwhose roots go back to the living history world where he learnt to recreate by hand the tools and artefacts of tiomes past. Paul works for Bison Bushcraft but has his own crafts website at www.probecrafts.co.uk.

Leading lecturer at The College of Naturopathic Medicine, Jackie is a career herbalist whose knowledge of healing flora is second to none. She offers plant walks, discussions on healing herbs and massage. She trades as Battle Clinic of Herbal Medicine.

Chris has a passion for survival related skills and believes that people should have the opportunity to develop their own knowledge and techniques and that the training they receive plants the seeds for them to achieve this. Chris has taught survival skills in temperate, tropical, arid, and extreme cold regions of the world during his 30 plus years involved in the survival skills field.

Professor Linda Hurcombe (BA, PhD, FSA) is an archaeologist who brings practical understanding to the study of the past. She is a full Professor in Experimental Archaeology and Material Culture , UK. Twenty-one years ago, she set up the first ever Masters programme in Experimental Archaeology in order to bring together practical and academic knowledge and make it available to students from all over the world. She has been enjoying the creative collision of mind and matter ever since.

Some students come wanting to know more about the history – or prehistory – of a craft they love, and some arrive loving books and want to find out how things work in practice. Experimental archaeology has many connections with bushcraft and one of her key interests is how people adapted to different climates and challenges, how they obtained the things they needed to survive and thrive in the landscape, and how the origins of bushcraft skills can be traced in the archaeological evidence.

Linda has published many books and articles. For her PhD research, she made and used stone tools so that she could understand the functions of prehistoric tools by cross-comparing microscopic wear traces. This is where she first came across bushcraft and developed an interest in how materials become material culture. The stone tools were a starting point for making everything else and led her to consider a wide range of materials, most of which do not survive, which she published as a book The Perishable Material Culture of Prehistory: investigating the missing majority (Routledge). 

Bushcrafters know well the value of axes, knives and pots but most would hesitate to talk about societies based on these, yet that is what so much of prehistory has to do. Given this, Professor Hurcombe draws on a wide range of knowledge combining knowledge from archaeology, traditional technologies, and ethnographies to understand the materials and opportunities each landscape provides and how prehistoric societies lived in them. 

Her experimental archaeology work includes practical expertise in flintknapping, making pottery, cordage, basketry, textiles, hide-tanning, and working with bark and bast. The softer organic materials are a challenge because they survive so rarely, and often only then as a dark and fragile fragment of something that was once vibrantly useful. 

The public presentation of archaeological finds is hard if the remains are a ‘black blob’ so a part of her work has been to find better ways to communicate the richness and expertise of the artefacts. She has collaborated regularly with open-air museums across Europe and has made reconstructions of archaeological objects for museums as public presentation and research. The two smallest were a cattle hair and tin stud bracelet, and a small textile panel made from nettle fibre and calfskin replicating Bronze Age finds. The largest was a joint project with other academics to build an 18 metre long Bronze Age sewn plank boat, stitched with yew withies.

Researching unknown or poorly understood materials and technologies is the centre of her research. Showing just what you can do with that tree, plant or animal is a key way to engage with the public, and connect the landscape with people – past and present.

Willow has spent most of her life living in the remoter parts of the Scottish Highlands. Although born in the Netherlands, the rugged conditions and dramatic landscape of Scotland is where she feels most at home. She has become an accomplished craftswoman in many traditional skills, spanning from Neolithic times to the present.

Chris Grice has been on his own journey of nature wellness taking him from overwhelm and stress, to a place where nature brings balance to his busy life. Chris is a Forest School leader and has a lvl3 in Advanced Wilderness Therapeutic Approaches . He has also completed a level 2 in counselling skills which will allow him to help others to use nature as a mirror and benefit from the ‘wilderness’ as he has done. www.wildernesstribe.org

Rupert Loch formed Feral Science after a career in classroom teaching with the aim to deliver the same outcomes for students but with the additional benefits of learning outdoors. He offers direct teaching to students, curriculum design for schools and organisations and CPD training for teachers and practitioners. His unique approach combines bushcraft, navigation and experimental archaeology skills, using them to illustrate and provide context, engagement and enhance the learning for curriculum science up to GCSE level.

Wayne is the founder of Forest Knights. Having grown up in the Sussex countryside, his love of the outdoors turned into a passion, which turned into a career!

Having spent many years climbing and mountaineering in the UK and Europe, Wayne then travelled widely learning new skills and experiencing new environments from Arctic Sweden to Japan. He has also spent the last 20 years learning and then teaching the martial arts and self-protection, so all in all is a handy man to have about!

All this experience turned into a dream from which Forest Knights was born. As Wayne’s formal education was in Mechanical Engineering, the finer points of running a business and managing a multi-skilled team were not alien to him, however, as with all those who hold a true passion, the business focus never overtakes the fun aspect and Wayne is never happier than when sharing with others his knowledge and skills built up over the years.

Wayne successfully completed his Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician training at Glenmore Lodge and successfully re qualified with WEMSI in Ireland as part of our ongoing commitment to continuous improvement.

Jackie Blake is a 500 Hour Certified Yoga teacher originally from New York City. She began teaching 20 years ago when she got her 200 Hour Hatha Yoga certification from YogaWorks in NYC. Since then Jackie has also completed her 300 Hour Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training from YogaFarm Ithaca. She has taught in New York, Gran Canaria where she lived for 3 years and met her husband, and now England where she currently resides. Her yoga class is appropriate for all levels from total beginner to advanced. 

BUSHDOCUK

Following a career in the armed forces and military intelligence, and having undertaken MSc and PhD degrees and a post-doctoral fellowship in academic cardiology, I worked for over 20 years as a Consultant Scientist in cardiology and lecturer in applied physiology before taking up full-time positions in pre-hospital and emergency medicine. Military service provided me with my first exposure to expedition medicine and disaster relief and I have gone on to serve as solo medic for expeditions in Africa, Asia, South America, and across Europe as well as gaining experience in delivering healthcare in the Channel Islands and as a search and rescue medic. I left my permanent NHS appointment as Lead Advanced Clinical Practitioner in one of London’s busiest emergency departments in April 2024 to focus on my legal career and remote area medicine whilst I continue in my role as CEO and CQC Registered Manager for Remote Medic UK Ltd. My varied positions have provided me with extensive clinical experience as well as competence as a senior manager and leader with a broad understanding of NHS and private sector healthcare, academia, the military and commerce. I am an instructor for adult and paediatric advanced life support and trauma resuscitation courses, I was one of the first Paramedics in the UK to qualify as an Independent Prescriber, I have completed the JESIP National Tactical (Silver) Command qualification, and I am one of only a dozen UK clinicians to hold the Fellowship of the Academy of Wilderness Medicine.

We are based in the beautiful county of Herefordshire where, in our workshop, we have been able to design some really useful tools through our experience as both makers and users and have an ever growing passion for working with different natural materials and for producing beautiful and useful products.

The Old Scout Bushcraft Club

The OSBC is a Programme Support Group within the Scouting Association,  based Hampshire.  Approved by the Institute of Outdoor Learning,   the team provide bushcraft, survival and wilderness living training,  for its volunteer members (aged 12-18), while also providing outreach training to the wider Scouting family.  Lead Instructors, Jim Cook and Rich Evans, are supported by a team of OSBC volunteers, who bring a wealth of skills and knowledge, helping develop their members outdoor skills and ensure the spirit of bushcraft continues for the next generation. 

My mission is to bring the past to life by providing practical and theoretical knowledge of traditional technologies and ancestral skills based on archaeological evidence.

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Ancient technologies are powerful tools for understanding human ingenuity. I teach skills such as hide tanning, tool making, and animal processing. My courses, held worldwide, connect you directly to these fascinating techniques. Reach beyond just ‘survive’ to build, create, and thrive using the knowledge of our ancestors.