Andover Down

Mark’s father started...

... the business nearly fifty years ago at a farm partially given over to industrial units on a road that leads from a roundabout just off the A303 to Whitchurch, Hampshire.

All those years later Mr Barnett senior may have sadly passed but the machinery whilst undeniably old and creaking hasn’t gone to the great scrap heap in the sky or to be strictly accurate Hirst’s Scrap yard just outside St Mary Bourne.

The Andover Down sawmill’s...

... main business is in soft wood posts, fences, sheds and anythink of that ilk you fancy. Mark also does green Oak but finds it very hard to make a profit on a log with the amount of waste involved- I know how he feels.

It’s not easy struggling on your own with large trees, he manages but his elbows are knackered from inching heavy timber along the saw bench and he can’t afford to have the few weeks recuperation off to have them mended.

Despite this Mark is always...

... friendly , helpful and cheerful and a very straightforward person to do business with. Once he has taken on board sufficient coffee and fags to get a head of steam up he is poetry in motion on the big saw.

I would say he could do it with his eyes shut but it’s not a very good idea when you have a 23’ circular saw blades whizzing around your fingers – mind you it would solve his elbow problem!

Winter isn’t laugh a …

… minute , trying to saw frozen timber isn’t just miserable it’s also impossible. Being what it is a yard full of wood it’s also full of water and mud at the wrong time of year.

I think the picture below taken on a rainy February captures the desire to work in a nice warm carpeted office that Mark occasionally has.

Go and see him, spend a bit a cash. 2010 will be the golden anniversary of Andover Down Sawmill.

Top of Page