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No. 12Spring 2026

Hollin

A thin curling plume of smoke rising from a smouldering bundle of dried herbs on a dark slate slab

Smoke

  • A week with the charcoal burners
  • Cooking over embers
  • The chimney sweep's year

Spring 2026 · 124 pages

No. 12Smoke

  • A week with the charcoal burners
  • Cooking over embers
  • The chimney sweep's year

Sold out

From the editor

Spring seemed the wrong season for smoke until we spent a week in the beech woods above Ollerby, where the charcoal burners start work as soon as the ground dries out. Smoke, it turns out, is a sign of something being made: charcoal, kippers, a meal over embers, a house kept warm.

This issue sold out in five weeks, faster than any before it. Every story from it is here on the site.

Hanna Ostrow, Editor

Contents

  1. Places

    p. 22: A week with the charcoal burners

    Deep in the beech woods above Ollerby, a small crew still makes charcoal the old way, in an earth clamp that has to be watched day and night. We stayed for a burn.

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