About Woodwork UK

Woodwork UK is a free directory of hobby woodworking courses, community workshops and furniture restorers across the United Kingdom. It lists every one it can find, links straight to the provider, and takes no booking and no fee.

It is run by FIXR SYSTEMS LIMITED, a company registered in England and Wales, number 15889598. It is online only, covers the whole of the United Kingdom, and is edited by Ben Criddle.

Why we exist

There was no single place to find this. Courses sit on booking platforms that take a cut, on the makers' own sites, and on nothing at all. Men's sheds appear on one map that says a shed exists but not what it does. Restorers sit in directories that sell the top position.

Our mission

To list every hobby woodworking course, community workshop and furniture restorer in the UK that we can find, and to say plainly where each fact came from.

Who makes it

Ben Criddle, editor. He is not a woodworker: he has not been on these courses, does not teach any of this, and nothing here is his opinion about how to do it. The job is finding these places, reading what they say about themselves, checking it and publishing it with its source attached. He is the named person accountable for every page.

That checking is where the work goes. Restoration was read one listing at a time before release, which is how 12 listings came to be left out rather than published: 2 that say themselves they have closed or retired, 6 whose trade turned out to be something else, such as clocks, pianos or glass, and 4 that were a second listing for a business already here. Everything is compiled by hand and by machine, then checked by a person before it publishes.

How this site is run

• Who runs it. FIXR SYSTEMS LIMITED, which is on the public register at Companies House. The same company builds websites as Fixr Systems.
• No fee and no paid placement. Listing is free and the order of a page cannot be bought.
• Courses come from each maker's own pages and the booking sites they use.
• Men's sheds come from the UK Men's Sheds Association's public directory and each shed's own pages.
• Furniture restorers come from public business listings and each business's own website.

How we check sets out what is checked on each kind of listing and what is not.

What makes us different

• We take no booking fee and no commission, so we gain nothing from which provider you choose.
• Nobody pays to be listed and nobody can pay for a higher position.
• We publish no reviews, ratings or rankings, because we have not been on these courses and will not pretend otherwise.
• We say what we do not know. Only 341 of 933 men's sheds say in their own words that they do woodwork, and the listings say which.
• We publish no contact details for men's sheds, because those are volunteers using their own phones.

Our values

• Sourced over confident.
• Complete over curated.
• The provider's own words over ours.
• Saying "we do not know" over filling a gap.

Woodworking courses are sometimes called woodwork classes or woodworking workshops; men's sheds are also called community sheds; and furniture restoration overlaps with french polishing, antique restoration and wood finishing. All are covered here under those names.

What we are not. Woodwork UK is not a school and teaches nothing itself. It is not a booking agent and handles no payments. It is not a trade-training directory: carpentry as a trade, joinery and trade qualifications are out of scope. It is not connected to the woodworking forum at woodworkuk.co.uk, which shares the name.

Search the courses, or if something here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it.