Moss and Co. of Hammersmith

Here we found pear and lime wood, scraps of wenge and mahogany, and the yard man told us that a palette of ebony invested in ten years ago would have quadrupled in value by now. Here I recall an anecdote from Brian: Tate Modern's architects intended the entire staircase to be housed in ebony, but there wasn't enough left in the world.

The yard man also told us how we could speed up seasoning wood without a kiln, if we could only find a car spray shop willing to let us stick our logs in for a few weeks while they baked paint jobs.

It's worth the trip to Hammersmith to walk around the storage sheds where boards of redwood 25 feet high stand on end, and where you can rummage through the scrap pile, where cheap Russian pine from a destroyed palette lies next to enough fancy walnut to make a guitar neck, and to talk to the yard man, who knows a very great deal about wood.