Adam's Axemen
The Adams Axemen is the country's best known lumberjack display team. They are a team of professional showmen who enjoy nothing more than entertaining a crowd.
The Adams Axemen were founded in 1966 as the New Forest Axemen, making them the longest running lumberjack display team in Great-Britain. Members of the Adams Axemen have competed around the world, including Australia, New Zealand, America, Canada and Europe.
It was back in 1966 at the New Forest Show that Reg Adams first saw his everyday forestry skills had been developed into a sport. Giving a display was a team of Australian Axemen. Their equipment and techniques were totally different to those that Reg was used to. In his job as a forester, he was used to working with axes and crosscut saws. Chainsaws were just starting to mechanise the falling of timber. So Reg thought this new sport was a way of keeping alive the old skill of axe and crosscut saw.
By the time the Australians returned to the New Forest Show, Reg had formed the New Forest Axemen. They had trained for the Aussies return and took them on in competition. Of course the New Forest Axemen were soundly beaten by the Australian Axemen, but the new sport of competitive axe racing had been introduced to Britain.
Reg continued to tour the country shows with his team of Axemen, entertaining the crowds wherever they went. Until 1987, they toured as the New Forest Axemen. Once Reg moved from the New Forest to Dorset, he decided to use his family name and his team became the Adams Axemen.
The Adams Axemen remain today the best known lumberjack display team in the country, regularly performing at over 50 shows a year.
