Bushcraft courses based in Yorkshire
Our Yorkshire Woodland Venue: Harewood Estate
There’s a moment in the woods when your attention shifts. You notice the breeze moving through the canopy. The light of the camp fire flickering under canvas and the satisfaction of seeing the steaming spout of a boiling kettle…
We build our courses around moments like these.
Most of Howl’s woodland bushcraft courses and residential training take place in private woodland on the Harewood Estate, near Leeds and Harrogate in Yorkshire. Here, we bring people together to learn useful skills, make things with their hands and become more comfortable spending time outdoors.
Come for an afternoon around the fire, a day learning something new or a weekend sleeping beneath the trees. There’s plenty to discover, and you don’t need to arrive knowing how.
The venue at a glance
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Private woodland on the Harewood Estate, Yorkshire, near Leeds and Harrogate. Access from the road at Weardley, or find the Howl Bushcraft - Harewood pin on Googlemaps
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Most of our Bushcraft training, traditional crafts workshops, outdoor cooking classes and overnight courses run from our base-camp here.
We have a couple of courses that run from another specific location, if that is the case you’ll see it explicitly labelled on the course’s page.
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Beginners, returning learners and experienced outdoor people, depending on the course. We welcome anyone eager to learn and wanting to live more adventurously
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Exact meeting-point directions are provided in your booking information.
You’re aiming for Harewood Yard, the key is to travel to the Weardley entrance and not drive through Harewood House estate!
Public transport will drop you off at Harewood Village, from there it is a 1 mile walk from the Muddy Boots Cafe to our meeting point at Harewood Yard.
Our Yorkshire home
There's a particular quality to a Yorkshire woodland once you start learning to read it. A tree stops being scenery and becomes something you can name from its bark alone. A tangle of nettle stems becomes cordage in your hands. The lie of the land tells you where the wind will come from tonight, and where you'd be daft to pitch a tarp.
That shift doesn't happen from watching. It happens from doing… There's time here to get something wrong, ask why, and try again. Time for a proper conversation while the billy can comes to the boil. Time to sit back and enjoy the thing you've just made, wonky as it might be.
That's what we've built at Harewood: practical learning, decent company, and the slow, quiet satisfaction of getting better at something with your hands.
This hub, the main venue, is the Harewood Estate. A mature Oak woodland, well within reach if you're coming from Leeds, Harrogate or York, and close enough for a day trip from most of Yorkshire.
Our Roots
Howl started life in the woods around Sheffield, where Jamie Dakota spent years learning this stuff the long way, through trial, error, and a fair number of cold, damp lessons. That's still how we teach now the courses run mostly at Harewood: hands-on, unpretentious, built around skills you'll actually use again rather than ones that just look good for a photo. (We do love a good pic though!)
Maybe you're getting ready for your first night under canvas. Maybe you just want a day away from your desk that fulfils something in you, and comes back home with you kindled within. Maybe you're building toward something bigger: a longer expedition, a different kind of life outdoors. Either way, a day in a Yorkshire wood is a cracking place to start.
Finding a bushcraft course that’s right for you
One day in the woods
The Primary Bushcraft Course covers the essentials: fire, shelter, tools, basic camp-craft.
If you've never done this before, or you've dabbled and want the fundamentals locked in, this is where most people begin.
One night out in the woods
The Woodland Weekend gives you two days and a night to properly settle in.
You'll build your own camp, cook over the fire you've built, and have the time to actually practise rather than just watch, with an instructor nearby if you need one.
Further afield
The Itinerant Bushcraft Course is about moving through the landscape, applying skills along the way.
Travel skills, resourcefulness, the kind of camp-craft that comes from having to adapt as you go.
If you want to go on a camping adventure, this is the course to set you up right.
About Harewood estate
The wood doesn't belong to us, we're just allowed to teach in it. We’re ever grateful to have excellent friends and partners on the Estate team that believe in everything we do. We’re all aligned in a belief, that we don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors, but that we borrow it from our children. That shapes everything: which materials we take and which we leave, how carefully we manage a fire, the distance we keep from wildlife, the effort we put into leaving no more trace than we have to.
We want you to leave noticing more than you arrived with, able to name a tree on the walk back to the car, understanding what actually goes into a simple wooden spoon, feeling a bit more connected to the Yorkshire landscape you're standing in.
The skills matter. How you use them matters just as much.
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Exact meeting-point directions are provided in your booking information.
You’re aiming for Harewood Yard, the key is to travel to the Weardley entrance and not drive through Harewood House estate!
Public transport will drop you off at Harewood Village, from there it is a 1 mile walk from the Muddy Boots Cafe to our meeting point at Harewood Yard.
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We'll send a kit list specific to your course once you've booked. As a baseline: proper outdoor clothing, something waterproof, and boots with grip that'll hold on wet ground. Overnight courses need your own camping kit on top of that. Don’t let equipment limit your options though, we have some gear we can lend you if you need. Just get in touch and Jamie will talk you through it.
Of course if you’re feeling flush and want to invest in some quality gear, we do have an online store…
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It's Yorkshire… it will, at some point. Working with the weather rather than against it is part of what we teach, and the right clothing makes the difference between an uncomfortable day and a genuinely good one. Safety comes first, always; if conditions mean the day needs to change shape, we'll explain what that looks like on the day.
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This is a beautiful woodland, with uneven ground, changeable weather, the odd wild deer. How much walking, carrying and standing is involved depends on the course. If you've got a mobility consideration, a health concern, or you're just not sure, talk to us before you book. Tell us what would help and we'll be straight with you about the terrain, the facilities, and whether it's a good fit. You deserve an honest answer before you hand over your money.
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We park in a private car park behind a gated private road on the estate, with 24 hour on site security. It’s a 10 minute walk from here to the woodland base-camp.
The Toilet is a composting loo with a plumbed in sink, at lot fancier that you might expect, but still simple and eco-friendly.
If the walk from the car park, the toilet situation, or anything else practical might affect whether you can attend comfortably, get in touch before you book. We'd rather sort it out in advance than have it be a surprise on the day.
Beyond Harewood
Harewood's home base, but it's not the whole story. Certain navigation courses, specialist workshops and trips take us further afield, across Yorkshire and beyond it, always check the location on the individual course page before you commit to travel.
If you're after something bigger still, our Biome Expeditions take these same skills into different landscapes entirely, alongside the cultures and knowledge that grew up around them.
Come and find your place by the fire
Bring your curiosity, your questions, and clothes you don't mind smelling of woodsmoke for a few days after.
We'll help you figure out where to start.
