The story of this wood can be told, due to the foresight of the Roycroft Family of Skibbereen, West Cork. They passed down the oral history through generations of their family. The wood used in this model originated somewhere in North America, where slow growth natural forests flourished in the 18th & 19th centuries, producing high quality, durable wood such as Pitch Pine (Pinus Rigida) and North American White Pine (Pinus Subgenus Strobus).
Some time in the mid 1800s the Copper Mining Company at Allihies placed an order for nine “miner's huts” from an American woodworking company, to be shipped to Ireland in Kit form and reassembled on site at Mountain Mine Allihies. By the 1880s the copper mines at Allihies had ceased production and these American style log cabins stood idle for a number of years. Eventually the mining company decided to sell off property & equipment from the old mine sites, including these huts. The auctioneers appointed were West Cork business family “WM. G. WOOD & SONS”. Mr. Wood then decided to buy the nine huts for himself (possibly recognising the exceptional quality of the wood), had them transported to a saw mill in Skibbereen and milled further into uniform sized lumber, to suit the more advanced construction techniques of the time. Then in 1915/16 he had a large bungalow built just outside the town of Skibbereen, using this same wood. Then in the late 1940s he sold the bungalow to the Roycroft Family who were Grain Merchants and Millers at the time. The property remains in the family to this day, but this historic structure has recently been demolished to make way for the construction of a new family home for the next generation of the Roycroft Family.
The family wanting to preserve this industrial, social and contemporary history, made contact with members of Allihies Copper Mine Museum and relayed this precious story of the wood. In turn the museum asked Allihies Men's Shed if they could do anything with some of this old wood. It was agreed to create this model for display at the museum. In late October 2024 a group of Mens Shed volunteers travelled to Skibbereen, sorted through the nail riddled pile of old wood and carefully selected the more usable, authentic, original wood and transported it back to Allihies. The construction techniques and visual interpretation of this model are “Period Correct” based on online research.
Hand crafted at Allihies Mens Shed.