Novel light timber sandwich panels (referred to as BCS panels herein) are manufactured by gluing plywood faces to bamboo core rings. The panels are tested in compression and in bonding shear (between bamboo and plywood). A finite element model is developed and validated against the experimental results, and is used to capture the responses of the BCS panels under axial and combined axial and bending actions. A lognormal distribution is used to represent the mechanical properties of plywood in the finite element analyses (FEA). Moreover, effect of different core configurations, face thickness, core layers and initial imperfection shapes on the axial compressive capacity of the panels are investigated. Where possible, results are compared against theoretical predictions. Current test results show that under axial compressive action, the ultimate capacity to weight ratio of the BCS panels are up to 27.3% higher than a conventional CLT panel of the same dimension. At large slenderness ratios, the proposed BCS panels have ultimate axial capacities close to the conventional CLT panels. Under combined axial and bending loading, the BCS panels outperform a CLT panel of similar size.