How were the thick hedges you see on most country roadsides made?

[SoilHugger]

Having gained a new interest in hedglaying I was walking yesterday and looking at the hedges that I would not have given a second thought to in a new light.

I was watching a few hedging videos yesterday and got an idea of how they have been done traditionally.

When I looked at the hedges on the single track road I was walking on I noticed there are some huge trunks laying horizontally in the way common hedges would be laid but then the branches just grow straight up from there. So, them being so thick would indicate an original small tree layed down and then left to grow over years and years?

On the videos it said they should be redone every few years. In the case of roadside hedges would it be that they would have been laid long ago, probably in the 50s or before and when wire took over they were just left to grow up on their own without any more manual tending?

I know machines are used to trim them now but would they probably have been laid in the traditional way to start and just left to grow once the fences took over to keep the sheep in and trimmed with machines just to keep them tidy?

Also what are the usual types of trees used and would they be the same as used for all hedging? I like how thick and high some of them go and would be keen to emulate that and to know if it were any different to the 'normal' hedging process.

Oh and that does beg another question. If not needing them for stockproofing and rather just for a privacy screen is there any advantage to hedgelaying vs just buying a load of trees and plonking them close to each other? Will proper hedging still provide a tighter screen than just closely spaced trees?

Probably all the more pertinent in winter when the foliage has died back.

 

[Hill Ground]

I noticed there are some huge trunks laying horizontally in the way common hedges would be laid but then the branches just grow straight up from there.

When you lay over a pleacher over, when the shoots grow up the whole lot can still mature and thicken as they would if they were upright.

 

[Nearly]

We laid one 40 years ago. It took 5 years to recover but you can barely see daylight through it now. It is trimmed every year.
Hedges may be laid once a generation if needed.
Modern flail trimming every year makes a thick hedge. Every 3 years makes the hedge open and gappy.
It's called apical dominance.
3 year hedges become no good for stopping livestock or much refuge for nesting birds from predators.
Hedges may have been in place for 100 years but not always the same plants.

 

[Derrick Hughes]

If a hedge is very thin then just cut it off at the bottom ,you then get many shoots to lay in a few years ,but keep stock away from it or they will eat the shoots a kill it , Dad said , Dad if you dont know used to lay hedges every year as long as i remember, Anyway dad said a lot of layers used to stick dead wood it the gaps as they were laying to make the job look nice, a thing he never did
He also left a sapling every 20 yards to grow on , which as left the farm here with many wonderful trees , i have tried this but the hedcuttters hate trees so the chop them off with there hedge cutters as they pass

 

[Exfarmer]

To get a good shockproof hedge , which of course they were planted for after the days of the Shepherd / Herder lived with the stock, it was essential to lay the hedge ofter a few years as particularly cattle can push through. This of course came about after the enclosures. The technique though was ancient as hedging was required too make enclosures for security.
Sadly with increasing cost of staff the ancient arts have been lost on many farms .
The Great Depression in the 1930s saw many farms revert to dog and stick type stock raising and hedge laying abandoned this lead to a huge proliferation of rabbits as the hedges grew wild and often spread 20-30 - 40 feet wide and it was no longer possible to easily retrain them when things got better in the 1950's
The advent of mechanical hedge cutters cheap barbed wire and other forms of fencing and the loss of traditional grazing livestock across so much of the country mean nearly all hedges today have lost their purpose of stock fencing.
There is thankfully a few people have kept the old arts alive but they are few and far between, when 150 years ago every farm would have men trained in the job of laying which kept them busy in the winter

 

[SoilHugger]

We laid one 40 years ago. It took 5 years to recover but you can barely see daylight through it now. It is trimmed every year.
Hedges may be laid once a generation if needed.
Modern flail trimming every year makes a thick hedge. Every 3 years makes the hedge open and gappy.
It's called apical dominance.
3 year hedges become no good for stopping livestock or much refuge for nesting birds from predators.
Hedges may have been in place for 100 years but not always the same plants.

Since I only plan to have a couple of acres I could be tending it whenever and would not be for stock just for aesthetics so I could learn the tricks of the trade at my leisure.

 

[borderterribles]

When I was a youth, I spent a lot of time on a family friend's farm. One Autumn and Winter their workman and I tackled the huge hedges on a block of land that they were planning to sell. Some would have been twenty feet high and thirty feet wide ,with substantial central ditches. We did this completely by hand, bow saws and billhooks, including the burning up. When we'd finished, it looked fabulous and was the talk of the district. It was duly sold and without further ado the new owner pushed all the hedges out and piped all the ditches!

 

[SoilHugger]

When I was a youth, I spent a lot of time on a family friend's farm. One Autumn and Winter their workman and I tackled the huge hedges on a block of land that they were planning to sell. Some would have been twenty feet high and thirty feet wide ,with substantial central ditches. We did this completely by hand, bow saws and billhooks, including the burning up. When we'd finished, it looked fabulous and was the talk of the district. It was duly sold and without further ado the new owner pushed all the hedges out and piped all the ditches!

It does sound like a nice skill to learn.

Would it also give me farming cred (as opposed to street cred)?

I wonder if nice hedging would raise the value of land? Not talking about for farming but an amenity woodland. I am thinking if I buy an unmanaged woodland and tidy it up would it raise its value.

Not my primary objective but if I am forced to sell it for whatever reason.

 

[Princess Pooper]

Many of us have continued to lay our hedges, particularly where we can get grant aid. Even with chainsaws it's expensive to pay a hedgelayer and most of us don't have the spare farm labour to do it ourselves even if we have the skills. So not all hedges would have been left unlaid since the 1950's. We have laid every hedge on the farm in the last 30 years and I know Fr in law was having some laid prior to that, but only because our County Council had some grant funding for short lengths every year.

Laying would be much more common on livestock farms where a stockproof hedge is more important.

Many hedges are hundreds of years old, we never had an Enclosure Act as enclosure started piecemeal in the 14C.

 

[borderterribles]

It does sound like a nice skill to learn.

Would it also give me farming cred (as opposed to street cred)?

I wonder if nice hedging would raise the value of land? Not talking about for farming but an amenity woodland. I am thinking if I buy an unmanaged woodland and tidy it up would it raise its value.

Not my primary objective but if I am forced to sell it for whatever reason.

Not sure on the credibility front, or the increased value, but it is a nice and therapeutic skill to aquire.

 

[PhilipB]

I see no sign of old hedge laying in this area.

I think the plentiful Chestnut coppice and spile fencing must have killed it quite early in the 19th century

If it ever existed. I wonder if it's a regional thing that is now applied indiscriminately across the country

 

[Ffermer Bach]

If a hedge is very thin then just cut it off at the bottom ,you then get many shoots to lay in a few years ,but keep stock away from it or they will eat the shoots a kill it , Dad said , Dad if you dont know used to lay hedges every year as long as i remember, Anyway dad said a lot of layers used to stick dead wood it the gaps as they were laying to make the job look nice, a thing he never did
He also left a sapling every 20 yards to grow on , which as left the farm here with many wonderful trees , i have tried this but the hedcuttters hate trees so the chop them off with there hedge cutters as they pass

Contractor here who is just retiring always leaves promising saplings when he flails, but he also did a lot of very good hedge laying in the past too, so I guess that's maybe why he left the standards.

 

[Ffermer Bach]

Since I only plan to have a couple of acres I could be tending it whenever and would not be for stock just for aesthetics so I could learn the tricks of the trade at my leisure.

I have planted a Hornbeam hedge round the garden, as I love how the leaves turn copper colour in the winter and stay on the tree. Ask me in 10 years and I will tell you how it's getting on.

 

[Ffermer Bach]

Many of us have continued to lay our hedges, particularly where we can get grant aid. Even with chainsaws it's expensive to pay a hedgelayer and most of us don't have the spare farm labour to do it ourselves even if we have the skills. So not all hedges would have been left unlaid since the 1950's. We have laid every hedge on the farm in the last 30 years and I know Fr in law was having some laid prior to that, but only because our County Council had some grant funding for short lengths every year.

Laying would be much more common on livestock farms where a stockproof hedge is more important.

Many hedges are hundreds of years old, we never had an Enclosure Act as enclosure started piecemeal in the 14C.

It is also very hard work

 

[stroller]

Since I only plan to have a couple of acres I could be tending it whenever and would not be for stock just for aesthetics so I could learn the tricks of the trade at my leisure.

There is a grant for hedglaying £13.40/m, I imagine if you approach a few farms and ask them to apply and you do the laying for the grant money they would be thrilled.
That rate won't allow for 'proper' laying, just chop it through and stamp it flat, my best day was 40metres and probably average 15m, it does depend on the type of species in the hedge, elm and hazel mix is easiest, field maple and blackthorn a nightmare. I leave as much deadwood in the hedge as I can as I provides habitat and food for insects, mice etc as it breaks down.