A fallen tree smashed three cars on a Bermondsey road because of the windy weather – and now will be turned into furniture by a local youth charity.
The rotting poplar tree fell during heavy winds on Grange Road, landing directly onto three cars parked outside the Artesian Health Centre.
Luckily nobody was injured during the incident on March 7, although at least one of the cars was severely damaged.
Goldfinch Furniture, a social enterprise staffed by sixteen to twenty-five year-olds who “perhaps made a couple of bad choices in their life” has taken the tree and are planning on turning the wood into a table or two.
Charlie Jopling, Goldfinch’s operations manager, told the News: “It’s a poplar tree so it means that it’s a hardwood, so we’re going to build furniture out of it.”
The furniture social enterprise spoke to the tree surgeons who arrived to deal with the fallen lumber, and they even delivered it to Goldfinch’s workshop on Spa Road.
The tree needs to dry out before it can be turned into sustainable furniture.
“The next stage is to mill it,” said Mr Jopling. “Probably next week we’ll cut it into slivers lengthways and then we’ll put in our yard for about a year or so until it dries.
“We haven’t decided yet what it’s going to be. I imagine a good piece like this will be a table or two, or chopping boards.”
Goldfinch is run by the London Reclaimed charity and helps people such as ex-offenders or those who have had substance misuse issues to gain access to employment.
It also makes the furniture for another one of the charity’s social enterprises, a coffee-shop called Lumberjack in Camberwell.