Bill Bryson on Hedges

“At least half the hedgerows of Britain pre-date the enclosure movement and perhaps as many as a fifth date back to Anglo-Saxon times.  Anyway, the reason for saving them isn’t because they have been there for ever and ever, but because they clearly and unequivocally enhance the landscape.  They are a central part of what makes England England.  Without them it would just be Indiana with steeples.”

Bill Bryson, Notes from a Small Island

MP’s hedge expenses

Hedges don’t often make it onto the news, but while I was writing the first draft of my book, the scandal over MP’s expenses was neatly demonstrating the decadence of the British political elite – hilariously, one of the disputed claims featured was that of Sir Michael Spicer who claimed for having the hedge around his helipad trimmed.

He later said this was a “family joke”, though I’m not sure why he expected the family to be chuckling over his Commons expense claims. Just for the record, he also claimed the costs of “hanging a chandelier” at his home.

Cotley Hunt Hedgelaying Competition

I spent part of yesterday at the Cotley Hunt Hedgelaying Competition.

It was lovely weather, the primroses were growing in the hedgebanks, and there were baby lambs in the fields. I got briefly lost in winding lanes on the way down from Crewkerne. The lanes are narrow, and often sunk between banks on both sides, suggesting this is “ancient countryside” and that the fields predate the enclosures.

The hedgelayers were on the Forde Abbey estate (just over the Somerset border into Dorset), working on three lengths of hedge. They were making Devon style hedges, on top of steep banks with ditches, which was great for me as it’s not a style I’ve seen first-hand before. Below are a few quick pictures of the event – I will put up more soon as there are some interesting series showing the process of plashing and so on.

Thanks to Mary Perry and Roger Parris, as well as to all the hedgelayers.(Apologies in advance if I have any names wrong).

Stuart Drew laying a pleacher

Stuart again, working on the same tree

Roger Vickery working with the billhook

Tina Bath clearing undergrowth in preparation

Various competitors and spectators

Hedgerow trees

This gives a good view of the bank the hedge is laid on top of.

Felix sharpening a stake (or crook)

Birds and Hedges

Hedges are an important habitat for birds. Most birds that nest  in trees adapt to hedges if there is sufficient cover. Many original woodland species now rely on hedges for their habitat. Blackbirds, chaffinches, linnets, whitethroats and yellowhammers aren’t found in non-woodland areas without hedges. And many more species, including finches, thrushes, skylarks and jays can be found either nesting or feeding in hedges.

At my mother’s house recently I spent ages trying to take a decent picture of the horde of birds that flit in and out of her hedges. But they tended to see me coming and all disappear, so this is the only one I got where you can even see a bird, and because of the angle you can’t really see it’s a hedge.

I won’t be applying for a job as a wildlife photographer any time soon. I don’t have the patience.

Britain’s Tallest Yew Hedge

The tallest yew hedge in Britain is apparecntly the 40ft one on the Bathurst Estate in Cirencester, Gloucestershire. (Obviously there are hedges of leylandii and beech, amongst other species, that are a good deal higher).

There’s a good picture of it in this article.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1043576/Yew-kidding-Lord-spends-5-000-trim-hedge–40ft-high.html

These are screengrabs of the view from the outside:

The hedge mainly seems designed to separate the Batshurst estate (home to Lord Apsley) from the town centre – you can see on the map below that the estate cuts right into the town (the hedge is under the word “Museum”).

Of course leylandii hedges of these dimensions often cause bitter arguments between neighbours, but I suspect the town council won’t be invoking the high hedges legislation and asking Lord Apsley to chop his yews down to size any time soon.

(Thanks to DrMr for pointing me towards this one.)

Van Riebeeck’s Hedge

An interesting historical hedge – when the Dutch were first settling South Africa, Jan van Riebeeck was Commander of the Cape from 1652 to 1662 and was in charge of the Forte de Goede Hoop (Fort of Good Hope). As part of the fortifications to keep the local population out he had a wild almond hedge planted. Part of the hedge still grows in the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in Cape Town.

There’s a picture and more details here.

http://capebulbul.blogspot.com/2008/07/van-riebeeks-hedge.html

There are various historical cases of hedges being used as barriers , including the British Customs Hedge in India, used as a barrier to prevent salt smuggling, and the German use of Normandy’s hedgerows as cover in the post-D-Day “Battle of the Bocage” (bocage being French for hedgerow). I’ll write more on those later.

(Thanks to Duncan for telling me about this one. He’s also pointed out that the signpost on the linked blog post indicates that the Afrikaans words for fence and hedge are identical.)

Hedge of the Day: St George

Duncan sent me this picture – the juxtaposition of the flag and hedge nicely catches part of what the book is about.

(Always been a bit puzzled by the St George Cross – how did we end up with a mythical dragon killer from the Middle East as our patron saint. He’s not even English and is a bit of a patron saint for hire as there are loads of countries who use him.)

Inevitably there is a bit of rambling about flags and hedges in the book, so I won’t go on about it too much here…

The Daffodil Hedge pt 2

In response to the previous post, my friend Rachel has sent me this:

“…you talked about a Forsythia Hedge in your latest post. I thought I’d share my own experience of this phenomenon. A few years ago I was walking from Rock Creek Park to Georgetown in Washington DC. In the middle of the woods I came upon a wall of flaming yellow forsythia. It turned out that this marked the fences of Dumbarton Oaks, a beautiful and historic house that is associated with the United Nations and Igor Stravinsky (www.doaks.org/gardens). If you are ever in DC in the spring do go and drink in this beautiful oasis of springtime colour – R”

Thanks Rachel, I was going to go back out to find a picture of forsythia, but this is a bit grander than the front garden hedges of North London.

The Daffodil Hedge

My daughter insisted she had seen a daffodil hedge on our way to the supermarket this morning – we drove back the same way, so I could see it with my own eyes.

Actually it was a forsythia hedge, but I can see where she got the idea from as it’s a very similar yellow and there were a few daffodils peeping out of at the base of it. Very springlike.

Good to see all the deciduous hedges start to sprout new leaves and blossom as well as the spring flowers waking up.

The Billhook: tool and weapon

Here’s another interesting Richard Jefferies quote, about how the billhook, traditionally used to cut and lay hedges, was also used as a weapon when need be.

The billhook is the national weapon of the English labourer. As the lance to the ancient knight, the rapier to the cavalier, the bowie to the backwoodsman, so the billhook to the man of the hedges. It is never far from his side; it is always somewhere within reach; the sword of the cottage. When he was a boy, while his father sat on a faggot on the lee side of the hedge eating his luncheon he used to pick up the crooked tool and slice off the smaller branches of the cut bushes to fit them for binding together. He learned to strike away so that the incurved point, if the bough was severed with unexpected ease, might not bury itself in his knee. He learned to judge the exact degree of strength to infuse into the blow, proportioning the force to the size of the stick, and whether it was soft willow, stout hazel, or hard thorn. The blade slips through the one with its own impetus; in the other it stays where the power of the arm ceases……..

This was quoted elsewhere (on livinghistory.co.uk) by Bob Burgess, who collects billhooks, and used to have a good site on them – it has disappeared and the new one is a work in progress, but worth keeping an eye on, if he updates it: http://www.billhooks.co.uk

I can understand a fascination with billhooks, they are a really satisfying tool, that haven’t changed that much since the Iron Age. And you get strange variations in local billhook styles, which probably depend on how the local blacksmiths learned to make them, and the most common use to which they were put in particular areas.

If it became necessary to fight, billhooks could be adapted, with longer handles, or spikes being added to make them more dangerous to the enemy. Then in more peaceful times they would revert to being farming tools, in a rather literal version of the “swords into ploughshares” idea.

Warning: Etymological pedantry follows…

Billhooks may well be named after hedges as well as being used to cut them. “Bill” can mean knife or axe in Old English, Dutch and German (in slightly varying spellings) – “Haga” in Old English, “Hecke” in German and “Haag” in Dutch were words for “enclosure” or “hedge”.

I’ve been told that in etymology it’s best to ignore the vowels (and to be a bit flexible about consonants). From Hecke to Hook or Haag to Hak seems at least a possible explanation of the hook in billhook and the hak in hakbijl (a Dutch version of the word). Also when the word was used to mean “enclosure” it could refer to woodland assarts, so this interpretation needn’t imply it always meant “hedge-axe” or “hedge-knife” – “enclosure-axe” is also a possible meaning.