WinterMoot review by Neil of Forgeways
For ten years now, the summer Bushmoot has been one of the highlights of my year, a summer camp that celebrates all that is bushcraft. A few years ago, this amazing event expanded to offer a winter Bushmoot, with a focus on food and outdoor cooking. I have, over the last three years, made the WinterMoot a spring pilgrimage as a way of starting the year off on the right foot, and lifting my mental and physical health, and to celebrate a new year with good friends. I wanted to share some of the joy I get from Bushmoot with you
readers.
So, as the Birch sap started to rise, my wife Jayne and I packed a bag and headed to Coventry for a winter adventure.
What is a Bushmoot?
Moot – coming from the Old English word for meeting – describes a gathering.
At Bushmoot, you can choose to camp in a tent, hammock, or under a tarp, have a fire, learn and practice the skills you want to, while having the freedom to get involved in activities as much, or as little as you want to. Because so many people are happy to share their skills and knowledge, it’s a place that thrives on developing one’s own abilities and confidence in the outdoors and feel more confident in themselves.
Bushmoot events always aim to cultivate a relaxed, joyful, and enriching atmosphere where every moment is an opportunity for growth, happiness, and lots of laughter.
History of Bushmoots
The Bushmoots began in 2004 as a gathering of over forty outdoor enthusiasts from the Bushcraft UK forums, eager to take their online discussions into the real world. That first weekend at Merthyr Mawr, South Wales, was about more than just meeting face-to-face, it was about sharing skills, experiences, and a love for bushcraft in a hands-on setting. Word spread quickly, and what started as a small forum meetup soon evolved into something much bigger. Friends, family, and newcomers joined in, creating a vibrant Bushmoot community that thrived alongside, yet independent from, the original online forums.
Originally an eight-day summer event, the Bushmoot expanded to two weeks over a decade ago, allowing even more time for learning, adventure, and camaraderie. In 2019, the Wintermoot – a Festival of Outdoor
Cookery – was introduced for those willing to embrace the colder months, and in 2023, the Mindmoot was launched, adding new dimensions to the experience. Over the years, over thirty events have taken place at various locations, Braziers near Wallingford and Cranham in Gloucestershire, but today, Rough Close in Coventry serves as the home of all Bushmoot gatherings.
Where and when is the WinterMoot
Winter Bushmoot took place from 17th February to 23rd February 2025 at the amazing Rough Close Scout camp, just on the western outskirts of Coventry. Scout camp doesn’t really do the location justice, as the site spans 43 acres of ancient natural woodland, criss-crossed by tracks and paths This woodland, together with its abundant wildlife, makes an ideal bushcraft festival location, enjoying the peace and quiet of the countryside whilst being within minutes of the City’s transport links, so attendees can walk, bike, drive, train or even fly in!
What happened at the WinterMoot
I arrived on Wednesday evening and was treated to a full roast beef dinner (with squirrel stew as a starter), all cooked by the Forest Knights staff at an outdoor kitchen bursting with fire and Dutch ovens. With a very full and happy tummy, the evening quickly turned into hugs with old friends and hellos with new friends, with campfire stories in between. In the few days before arriving the following had already happened: First aid, knife and edged tool safety, campfire fuel procurement and processing for individual cooking fires, fire lighting and fire management, basic cooking – Kebabs and drinks, knots, basic hunting skills – archery, atlatl, making catapults, field hunt, squirrel and deer skinning and butchery.
The first workshop I delved straight into was the Pheasant butchery, and under great tuition from Steve, the group quickly turned the 32 Pheasants into a huge pile of meat for more workshops, and all the bones and carcasses went into a big pot to be turned into a sumptuous bone broth. Next, my personal favourite was tracking, with the mindset of sourcing food. Over the next few hours, we were facilitated by the immensely talented and knowledgeable Rhoda and Jay of Trackcraft (trackcraft.uk). The weather over the weeks leading up to the Bushmoot had been very kind indeed for a tracking workshop and the muddy tracks on the southern perimeter, revealed Muntjac and Roe deer prints, badger prints, raptor kill sites, squirrel feeding stations, mouse feeding sign, deer browsing sign and lots of badger snuffles, I was even treated to a Muntjac sighting up close later in the Moot. Rhoda and Jay didn’t just stick to animal tracking; on the Friday, they tracked me whilst I was exploring a park run course route for the summer moot, barefoot. Snares and traps followed, continuing the knowledge gained during the tracking.
The Bushmoot facilities were top notch this year, with the organisers creating a large food preparation area and no less than ten raised and adjustable fire pits all with adjustable grills and Dutch ovens to match. This enabled the next workshop – Venison and mushroom wellingtons and apple turnovers. We had to practice fire management, ensuring even heat to create the tastiest outdoor pastries ever. Tucked up for the night after my first full day, very tired, but very happy.
The next morning, it was into the morning meeting held at 0930 for everyone to see what’s being offered that day in terms of workshops. This is a a really good opportunity, if there’s something you want to do but it’s not being specifically offered, to just give a shout-out, and it usually gets fitted into the schedule somehow.
On Friday, the first workshop of the day was campfire cranes, cooking pot hangers and all things to do with managing pots and cooking over a fire. We were shown dovetail fire cranes, adjustable twin leg rotary style frames, to wagon stick setups. As a green woodworking tutor, I was blown away by all sorts of clever and ingenious devices.
Next was my turn to teach brush making. A simple traditional craft to create a foraging brush, although some used theirs as pastry brushes for things like the venison Wellington. It was great to see the brushes popping up and being used throughout the festival. From there, it was more cooking. This time it was venison and pheasant burgers that had been minced and chopped up and combined with some herbs to make what was possibly the best burgers I’ve ever tasted, but the secret herb and spice mix was a closely guarded secret by Rob. If that wasn’t enough, delicious flat breads were made by all and even included me making gluten free ones.
Some afternoon downtime followed, where I chose to map out the barefoot park run, trying to burn off some calories before the next feast of calzone pizza making and with bushcraft belts groaning into the evening, where we were treated to a fabulous bushcraft pub quiz. Oh, what a great start to the evening that was? Who doesn’t like a pub quiz, especially an outdoors one? Then the final part of the evening saw a large group around the communal fire pit singing with Siggy on the guitar. Very kindly obliging the multitude requests that came at him. We all sang late into the night and again went to bed tired and very happy.
Then came Saturday, which was the last day for me, unfortunately. It was the penultimate day for the Bushcraft Festival as a whole. After the morning meeting, we went straight into fire lighting and what a great session led by Ben and it started with a look at a selection of tinders and what was in Ben’s fire lighting box. We then set about trying to make some of the contents for our own tinder boxes. First up was char cloth, which will be familiar to quite a lot of the readers and is basically baked cotton inside (in this case) a tobacco tin with a hole in until the smoke turns clear or sometimes when you see flames, it’s extinguished by plugging the hole with a whittled stick, or my preferred method is just turn it upside down in the mud to exclude the air. Next, we made sulphur matches, very, very exciting playing with essentially brimstone and fire. We melted some sulphur powder down, all desperately trying not to breathe any fumes whilst doing it, but just a tiny amount of Sulphur on a metal spoon carefully held over the fire. Wooden spills (or takeaway stirrers, whichever is your preferred method of getting fire lighting materials) were dipped into the melted sulphur and allowed to set. We spent the rest of the session practicing with traditional flint and steel to create sparks to catch on our char cloth, which we could then take to the sulphur matches to ignite, which gives a long and sustaining flame enough to light a survival candle or whatever fire source you need to get going.
Time for my final teaching workshop, hand lines. Some people could use them as a paracord tidy or a ridgeline tidy, but I tend to use mine as fishing line holders for use on my sit-on-top kayak. Very similar to a crabbing line, but instead of a bag of bacon bits for the crab I attach a lure or two, or a set of mackerel feathers. They’re a brilliant project to make. They are such a fun green woodworking activity, basically using the movement and the drying of green wood to lock a mortise and tenon frame together. In the summer, I hope to teach some fishing lure carving, crisp packet and paracord mackerel feather lure making to go on some of these hand lines. The afternoon was for participants to practice their cooking skills learnt over the week and to prepare for the communal meal in the evening, where everyone got together. From previous years feedback, I know it’s a really high point of the Bushmoots for a lot of people, where the whole festival can come together and share their food, tall tales and songs and one or two dad jokes.
Highlights for the author
Well, it’s quite hard to break my highlights down as there are so many, but it’s the essence of Bushmoot, meeting old and new friends, having a great laugh, feeling relaxed and welcome in the Bushmoot space where skill sharing comes naturally. The volume and the quality of wild foods that we butchered, cooked and ate during the week, and the tracking were icing on the cake.
I went away very, very happy and thoroughly recommend it to anyone.
Last words from Tony the host, organiser and all-round amazing dude.
The winter Bushmoot was an incredible experience—seeing all the people cooking independently, managing their fires, and preparing food with skill and confidence was truly inspiring. The atmosphere was alive with activity, yet there was a strong sense of camaraderie as everyone supported and learned from one another and as always, we laughed a lot!
What’s next?
Well, if you liked the sound of the WinterMoot, then how about coming to the bigger and longer summer Bushmoot? You can attend one day, the main BushMoot, immerse yourself for the full two week extended Moot, or any combination. Have a look here to see dates this year BushMoot.com
Alternatively, the shorter Mindmoot, with a focus on well-being and nature connection, runs from Friday, May 29th to Sunday 31st 2026
Neil is part of a two person team which run the great Forge Ways school. He has a passion for traditional skills and low impact ways of living, combined with a wealth of experience instructing in the outdoors. Neil has diverse qualifications and experience of arboriculture, green wood working and bushcraft. He can often be found amongst the mountains as a member of his local mountain rescue team.
Neil delivers courses with a calm competency, enabling students to learn skills in a relaxed learning environment that is both mindful and along permaculture principles.
If you want to know more about the amazing BushMoot events have a look on BushMoot.com, we’d love to have you come and share time in the woods with us.
