The Workshop  ·  Chessenden Farm  ·  Cohorts of eight

Everything you saved,
actually made.

Your camera roll is full of things you were going to make one day. This is the day. Quiet craft in a workshop on a working farm: real tools, farm timber, a bench with your name on it, and an object at the end that you made and will keep forever.

8
Benches per cohort
1
Finished object, yours
0
Experience required
3
Visits across a season

You don't book a class.
You choose an object.

Two experiences, two objects worth a season of your weekends. Both are quiet work, forgiving of beginners, finished in three visits. And both are things the Southerly store sells finished: you can buy them, or you can be the person who made theirs.

Experience I · green woodwork
The Greenwood Set
Cut from this hill. Carved by this river.
Spoon, then bowl, then a three-legged stool: carved from green timber cut on the property, with axe and knife and shave horse. No machines, no noise, just the sound of a blade taking off a shaving that only you could have taken. The cutting boards, walking sticks and benches in the Southerly store come off these same benches. Yours will sit beside them, except it isn't for sale.
Visit 1The spoon. Everyone starts here. Nobody minds.
Visit 2The bowl. Bigger stakes, same knife.
Visit 3The stool. You will sit on this for thirty years.
Experience II · felt & steam
The Hat
Made in autumn. Worn at the fire for decades.
Blocked felt, shaped over steam with your own hands, fitted to your own head. The store sells our hand-shaped hats finished; this is the other way to own one. Almost nobody in this country teaches hat making anymore, which is exactly why we do. You wear it out of the valley and you never once explain it the same way twice.
Visit 1Body and block. The felt takes its first shape.
Visit 2Brim, crown, the shape argues back. You win.
Visit 3Band, trim, fit. You wear it to dinner.

You cannot
ruin it.

The crafts here are chosen for a reason most workshops never think about: every mistake is recoverable. Felt re-steams and re-blocks. Green timber grows on the hill behind the workshop. Leather unpicks. Nothing you do on a Saturday can destroy a season's work.

That matters more than it sounds. Things made by your own hands are worth more to you than things you buy. That's not romance, it's one of the most replicated findings in behavioural research, and it only holds if you finish. So we build the finishing in.

And the work is quiet, deliberately. No grinders, no forges, no machines shouting over the valley. A blade, steam, thread, and the river doing the background noise.

Your bench holds your workBetween visits, your project stays on your bench in the workshop, exactly where you left it. Coming back to it half-made is half the pull.
The store sells what the workshop makesEvery object here has a finished twin in the Southerly store. Buy it, or make it. The made one costs a season and is worth more, and you'll know exactly why.
The stars are the evening sessionAfter dinner, the southern sky with no city under it. Learn the constellations you can only half-see from home. Included, always.
Dinner is by the fireCohorts eat together. Same eight people, same benches, three visits. By the third, they're not strangers, and that's not an accident.

A day to try it.
A season to make it.

The Taster

One day at the bench

A$320 per person

A full day in the workshop: carve a spoon or block your first felt, eat a long lunch by the river, drive home with the thing you made. The honest way to find out if the season is for you.

  • All tools, all materials, no experience needed
  • Lunch from the farm kitchen
  • Taster days credit toward a season if you return
The Season · The full thing

Three visits. One object. Eight of you.

From A$1,900 per person · the season

Choose your object, join a dated cohort of eight, and come back to the same bench three times across a season. Every visit: a full day's making, dinner by the fire, the sky after. Your work waits on your bench between visits.

  • All materials, including farm timber and felt
  • Three dinners, three star sessions, one finished object
  • Overnight stays can be added when the eco structures open
  • Couples welcome: two benches, two objects, one fire
First cohort: Spring 2026 · register interest now

Choose your object.
We'll hold your bench.

Cohorts are eight benches, no more. Tell us which object calls you and we'll write back with the first dates.

The Workshop at Chessenden Farm  ·  Allyn River Valley, NSW