Gourt Home::Gourt :: Hedge laying
In Slavonic languages, a hedge is a 'zhivy plod', or a 'living fence'. It is for this purpose that we see hedging traditionally used in the United Kingdom.
Hedge laying is a country skill typically found in England and is used to achieve a number of goals:-
- To form a livestock-proof barrier.
- To help rejuvenate an ageing hedgerow by encouraging it to put on new growth and by helping to improve its overall structure and strength.
- To provide greater weather protection for crops and local wildlife.
- To provide a pleasing screen to a garden or field.
Examples of contemporary Northamptonshire hedge laying
The following pictures of modern hedges laid in the village of Grendon, Northamptonshire.
The theory of hedge laying
As with many things, the theory behind laying a hedge is easy; the practice is though much harder - requiring much skill and experience. The aim being to reduce the thickness of the upright stems of the hedgerow trees by cutting away the wood on one side of the stem and in line with the course of the hedge.
When this done, each remaining stem is then laid down towards the horizontal, along the length of the hedge and at regular intervals upright stakes are placed along the line of the hedge; these stakes give the finished hedge its final strength. The uprights are often bound together by such things as hazel whips, which are woven around the tops of the stakes.
Traditional regional styles of hedge laying found in England
Over the centuries, different parts of the UK developed their own distinctive styles of hedge laying, all based on the same basic theory:
Midland Style
Also known as Bullock style. This hedge was designed to keep big heavy bullocks in their field. This style is mainly found in Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire - traditional beef rearing areas.
Typical features:
- Stake sides face road or plough land.
- Brush is on the animal side to stop them from eating new growth
- Hedge slopes towards the animals, as stakes are driven in behind the line of the roots.
- Strong binding is below the top of the hedge (so that bullocks cannot twist it off with their horns)
Derbyshire Style
As the name suggests this style is from County Derbyshire which is a mixed farming and sheep area.
Typical features:
- Square, sawn stakes behind the line of roots.
- Pieachers woven firmly.
- No binding, relies on weaving to keep pleachers in place.
- Brush left the far side.
Double Staked Styles are used in Somerset and Lancashire.
Both of the following two styles are good sheep hedges; they use stakes, but as a rule neither uses any type of bindings:
Lancashire Style
Typical features:
- Uses a double row of stakes, placed alternately
- The most part of each preacher lies between the two rows of stakes.
- The twiggy bits are pulled to the outside through the stakes, helping to keep everything in place.
- Height varies, from 3' upwards.
Westmorland Style
Typical features:
- Single row of stakes down the centre of the hedge which, when the hedge is finished, can no longer be seen.
- Stems go between the stakes so that alternate ones go to opposite sides of the hedge.
- To finish, twigs at each side and on top are twisted together to produce a square shaped hedge.
Brecon Style
A double brush style; this means that the twiggy ends of the pleachers are kept both sides of the hedge. Brecon style is practised in Breconshire, Radnorshire, Herefordshire & Monmouthshire.
Typical features:
- Stakes are in the centre of the hedge.
- A lot of stems are cut off and replaced by deadwood - this keeps animals noses away from the new growth coming
- from the stumps. Pleachers are double brushed and woven round every stake. This bowing covers the stumps,
- further protecting the new growth. It also hides the stakes.
- The hedge is fairly tall, bound and trimmed square.
Montgomery Style
Typical features:
- A wide hedge.
- Half crops are sometimes used on the outside.
- Pleachers are closely woven and the tops are entwined.
- Trimmed square.
- No binding.
The Stake & Pleach style is used in Monmouth, Brecon, Radnor N & E, Carmathen and Montgomery.
The Flying Hedge Style (a low hedge on a bank) is used in Pembroke, Gower, Glamorgan Valley, Monmouth and Carmathen.
South of England Style
Also known as the Sussex Bullock Fence and has a double brush style, but the cut base of the pleachers can be seen. Sometimes a preacher is laid almost flat at the base before the next few are laid at a normal angle, this is presumably to help keep the sheep at bay.
Typical features:
- Stakes are in the centre of the hedge.
- Bindings are used.
- The hedge is trimmed immediately after laying.
Yorkshire Style
A sheep hedge as used on mixed arable & livestock farms. It is laid between two arable fields – and is so designed that by the time grass has replaced plough land in the rotation system, the hedge will have grown to a normal height. The base is too dense for sheep to push under it.
Typical features :-
- A very low hedge, which bushes to provide a barrier to wind. Stems lie so close its is almost impossible to see the twigs branching off.
- Sawn stakes, rail nailed on top - because stakes & binders don't grow very plentifully on windy uplands.
- Brush goes both sides.
West Country 'Hedges'
The style of hedge used in Devon, Cornwall and parts of Wales gives us the familiar deep Devon lanes. However in reality they are seldom particularly deep – but rather what they do have are high banks, which give the impression of depth.
The field is often on the same level as the road. The banks are sometimes faced with stone rather than turf. However these hedges are not walls which have stone all the way through, but are rather an earth bank faced with stone.
In this context, the word hedge derives from an earlier one meaning bank – i.e. the division between strips in the medieval farming system.
After the 18th century enclosures each man had to dig a ditch as his boundary and pile the soil spoil on his side of the ditch. He then had to plant bushes in order to keep his animals on his own land. This 'digging down and stocking up' was very hard work and as a result when creating internal boundaries, the ditch was often left out but the result was still called a hedge.
External links
"Hedge laying"