Hurstpierpoint & District Ploughing Match

Saturday saw a dozen or so cutters take part in the Hurstpierpoint open hedgelaying competition. My previous experience of these early sessions at ploughing matches has been mixed. I know I don't have a hope in hell's chance of a place and they are often very hard work on less than ideal hedges - but hope springs eternal and one always thinks that this one will be different and you'll get a nice cant.

At first glance this particular hedge looked great, not too heavy and with plenty of material to make a thick stock-proof hedge. A mixed hedge of mostly Blackthorn with some Hazel, Willow, Spindle and Hawthorne. It was an odd mix and may have been planted up or just  grown up along the line of an old neglected hedge as some sections contained a lot of thin young stems interspersed with large old Hawthorne.

My cant ran through the right-angle intersection of another hedge that you can see in the background of the photo above and was a real mix of Blackthorn and Spindle with a couple of old Hawthorn stems all intertwined but with very little substance and a lot of the Spindle was diseased and had bracket fungus on the stems close to the ground.

 

Having removed the considerable amount of dead Blackthorn the layable growth was rather sparse, especially around the section where the two hedges met. It was going to be a challenge making a thick hedge.

And as you can see from the finished job below it was rather uneven having some bulk where the bushy Spindle had been laid but thin elsewhere. I felt that I made a reasonable job of the stakes and binders so perhaps I could scrape a few points in these categories. Although we had one heavy shower mid-session the rain held off until we were finished.

By way of comparison here is Tony's rather splendid hedge, although he did have to lay in some out of line stems to provide bulk.

And here is a view of some of the other contenders for the top places.

One pleasant diversion was the splendid teams taking part in the ploughing competition. Unfortunately we did not have enough time to watch them in action.

Opening sessions 2014/15

Well it's the hedge laying season once again, although you would never guess it by the weather we are experience lately - far too warm for laying heavy hedges. I missed the opening session with the Surrey Hedglaying Group on the 6th of September but did join them for coppicing on the 13th. This was followed by two sessions at Churt on the 20th and 27th when we laid approximately two hundred or so meters of predominately hazel hedge.

Hazel is easy enough to lay, being thorn-less, forgiving in the pleach and usually easy to clear out both in the canopy and at the field layer. However, it comes with it's own set of problems and challenges. It has usually been coppiced in the past and therefore has multiple stems emanating from stools, which may be closely spaced, or have large gaps between them. It has often been left to grow to twenty or more feet high before laying and hazels natural tendency is to form tall, straight poles with little side growth. The upshot is that the hedgelayer is faced with either too much material all in the form of long poles with the only side branches at the very top, and/or large gaps between the stools with nothing to infill with. In most cases a lot of material will be removed from the hedge, which is great if you can use the larger logs as fuel and can chip the smaller waste.

As you can see from the photos, our hedge was beside a country lane and on top of a steep bank on that side; on the field side the bank was only eighteen inches or so. As is often the case some of the stools have slipped down the bank over time due to erosion, creating an uneven hedge line and, on this steep bank, a difficult cutting position for right handed layers.

The finished hedge looks a bit sparse in places due to lack of material but, being hazel, it will thicken up quickly come next spring.

On the field side there is a neat finish opening up the view and, with the raising of the canopy on the standard trees, a lot more light is let into the paddocks. Although I did not take any photos before work started you can get an idea of what the hedge looked like from the one on the other side of the road.

Hedges made up almost entirely of Hazel are an interesting point for discussion. Most planted hedges, from either the period of enclosure or later, would be predominately Hawthorne as, unlike Hazel, this forms a good stock-proof hedge. From what I have read - and hopefully someone will correct me if I have got it wrong - Hazel hedges are of more recent origin and were in the not too distant past managed woodland that was worked under a coppice regime. When this form of woodland management became uneconomic the coppice was cleared for pasture or arable but the coppice stools at the field edge were left in situ to form a boundary marker. If the land was set to arable then there was no need for a stock-proof barrier and if there were stock then a post and rail or wire fence would be erected - barbed wire became common at the end of the nineteenth century.

On a different but connected note, below is a photo of two unusual billhooks seen at the recent Bently Woodfair. They are both from the well know maker Elwell, the upper one is marked 3811 and the unusual size of 111/2; the lower 3722, 10. Neither of these patterns feature in the 1950s Elwell catalogue I have a copy of - anyone know which model/region they are. It may well be that they were made under licence for Elwell by another forge, for sale locally or for a bespoke order, as they both have similarities with well known Elwell patterns.

Final session

Monday and Tuesday saw Fred, Ian and myself complete phase two of the Avery Hill hedge. This was sixty-nine meters of a rather low thin hedge, comprised mostly of Field Maple and Hawthorn, with some flowering cherry, Holly and Privet mixed in. Given the early spring weather, and to be on the safe-side, a comprehensive nest check was done on Saturday, with no sign of any nest building found. As with phase one, that can be seen in the distance in the shot below, the hedge is overshadowed by mature trees along almost its entire length and this will no doubt restrict regrowth.

There are two bus stops used by the students adjacent to this section of the hedge and we had to work around the pick-up times and close off sections of the footpath off-peak.

I pleached-in this stem at right angles in order to get a bit of body into a thin section of the hedge and it worked out rather well.

We brought in an additional 60 stakes and 60 binders to replace the rather poor materials supplied and I think this helped the appearance of the finished hedge.

So that's it - all over till the autumn. Thanks to everyone who has helped along the way with advice, guidance, practical assistance or just good old friendship. Let's hope it's a good summer with lots of great birding opportunities and that there are nice hedges to lay in the coming season.

Maasheggenvlechten

The annual Maasheggen hedgelaying festival took place at Beugen, close to the Maas river system, south-east of Nijmegen on Sunday 9th March. Like no other hedgelaying competition I have ever attended, it is a huge event, drawing an estimated crowd of nine to ten thousand spectators. The weather was glorious right from the start and below you can see the competitors getting their pre-competition talk.

Only the local Maasheggen style is allowed in the competition itself and Phil and Dave had entered as a team - teams are the norm in Dutch competitions, with up to five competitors in each team. Peter and I had been asked to do demonstration cants of Midland and South of England, as were a team from Flanders doing their local style and Jef Gielen constructing a 'wildlife hedge'.

 

Our cants were in the field furthest away from the entrance and marquee and rather heavy, considering that we were laying with hand tools only - serves me right for pontificating about the overuse of chainsaws.

 

 This is my bit about half way though. The temperature had got to 18c or so by then and the sweat was pouring off me. You can see John's Land Rover and tent in the background and beyond that some of the hedges being worked on by those in the competition.

 

Despite our somewhat remote location, we attracted good crowds and here is Peter giving it some welly on a particularly heavy stem, making the pleaching cut and taking off the heal at the same time. He got a well deserved round of applause for his efforts. Note how the public are allowed close to the cutter - no chainsaws of course - and the brush had to be placed behind where the public are standing, in specifically marked areas so that they had a good view.

This is my finished cant, with Jef and his assistant finishing off their 'wildlife hedge' in the foreground. You will see that he has used living stakes (crops) and incorporated almost all the available material to create a very wide, dense hedge.

 Difficult to gauge what the spectators thought of the South of England style, as the Dutch are naturally very polite but many said it was 'beautiful'. I'm not sure if this meant neat and tidy or perhaps over-fussy for what is, after all, a field boundary. The use of binders would certainly have been something new to them and these willow ones gave a very nice finish.

The Dutch style is very different from anything seen in the UK, with pleaching cuts made at various heights and the stems at a low angle, and horizontal along the top of the hedge. The example below won second prize in the competition and the team of three are laying the final stems along the top of the hedge which, with the live crops, makes for a very strong hedge. The result is rather sparse to our eyes but regrowth would no doubt be good.

This was the winning hedge. Most of the side growth has been removed but they have laid most of the stems from low down, somewhat reminiscent of the 'Yorkshire' style.

And here are two very happy Englishmen, who produced a creditable version of a Massheggen.

 

We all had a great day. The weather was fabulous and the hospitality of our hosts second to none. The lasting impression was one of huge crowds, meticulous organisation, the unbridled enthusiasm of the competitors and a genuine interest in the wildlife value of hedgerows from the spectators.More photos of the trip can be seen here.

 

A bonus for me was my first ever sighting of migrating Common Cranes (Grus grus) when sixty one flew over the site at 10am - very special.

I also got to meet Georg Muller, the author of 'Europe's Field Boundaries'. This work is the result of more than thirty years of study and documentation of field boundaries of all kinds in twenty-three European countries - a true magnum opus. If you interested have a look at his web site here.

Heggen-vlechten in Nederland

Last week I was very fortunate to be able to join a small team of hedge layers from the south of England on a trip to The Netherlands. The purpose of the trip was to help with some commercial hedge laying, provide training opportunities and to take part in the annual Maasheggenvlechten hedgelaying festival.

Hedgelaying in The Netherlands had all but died out after the last world war but there has been a strong revival in the last ten years led by a small but dynamic group of enthusiasts, supported by local authorities and conservation organisations. The old style of hedge laying used in The Netherlands is shrouded in the mists of time with very little documentary evidence available. The style now practised is the subject of much discussion as to it's heritage but it is accepted as authentic in some quarters, although there are moves to adopt a more 'English' style in some areas.

As you can imagine I took a lot of photos and a selection of these can be found here.

Our first day was spent laying a section of a rather nice hedge that was to be part of a new bridle way with a new hedge planted alongside. As you can see it was a bright frost morning. The hedge has been topped in the past and some of the stems are large and multi-part.

We were laying this on a commercial basis and so worked as a team, with a chainsaw cutter working with a layer, followed up by two others staking, binding and tidying up. A reported from a Dutch Radio and TV station had joined us at our hotel after breakfast and accompanied us to the hedge, doing live radio interviews for the morning news programme and making a short film that was broadcast on the evening TV news - fame at last!

 It was a nice bright day so we cracked on at a good pace and, with three Dutch teams laying short cants, we completed 175 meters, which for the English team equated to about 30 meters per man.

With hazel stakes and binders being in short supply in The Netherlands our hosts had procured chestnut 'tomato stakes' from France, which were un-cleft and about and inch and a half to two inches in diameter. A good size for fitting in the hedge centre but slightly shorter in length than would have been ideal. The binders were willow and very nice indeed, being fresh, a good length, free from side branches and of a consistent diameter.

The end result was very pleasing and, as it was my task for the day, if I don't know how to stake and bind a SoE hedge now, I never will. You can see that a new fence is being erected on the left and a new hedge will be planted alongside this.

A great treat for me was the appearance of a dozen or so White Storks. There was a nesting area just over the river at the end of the hedge and on several occasions during the day they circled overhead in a communal display. I believe these to be descendants of birds reintroduced to the area in the late 1960s.

On day two we helped out with a training session for about twenty people who had signed up for a six day course on hedge management. This was the final day of the course and was a session of practical hedge laying in SoE style. The students had attended talks on hedge management and had some previous experience of cutting and laying. All were very enthusiastic and keen to get hands-on with the hedge. Our host Lex Roeleveld from Sichting Heg-en-Ladschap (The Hedge and Landscape Foundation) gave a short introductory talk and Phil followed this with a short session on tools and tool sharpening.

The hedge was a mixed species maiden of about twelve years and part had been laid by the students in a previous session.

Most of the stems were easily manageable with hand tools but there were a few that presented a challenge but this young woman did a great job cutting the pleach and removing the large heal with her axe.

As you can see the hedge was not very bushy and very little material was removed. However the finished product was a good, stock-proof hedge and a credit to the students.

 Day three saw us move to another area of the country, closer to the German border and near the river Maas. We were working with members of the Heggengilde, an association of professional hedge layers. They were interested in seeing English commercial hedge laying techniques and to brush up on their axe work. A 75 meter section of Hawthorn hedge was chosen as being suitable for chainsaw work and typical of what you might expect on a commercial job. Perhaps a bit heavy for axe work but these were experienced cutters.

Here we see a familiar figure in blue overalls demonstrating the tricks of the trade - the most important of which is how to quickly decide what is coming out of the hedge before pleaching the stem.

One of the Guild members gets in some axe work.

  

 It's not very often that you get to eat lunch al fresco in temperatures of 17c in early March. And what a lunch it was - home smoked salmon, 'hedgelayers' soup and fried egg and ham sandwiches.

The finished hedge featuring a nice smooth 90 degree turn.

 I think I'll cover the competition in a separate post tomorrow.

Mud glorious mud!

Saturday saw the South of England Hedge Laying Society's annual competition take place on ground that can only be described as a quagmire. Although the weather on the day was wonderful, the effects of the wettest winter on record were still much in evidence.

The hedge was a maiden of about fifteen years, mostly Hawthorne with some large Field Maples, Spindle and probably a few other species scattered about. The cants were a the usual mix of the good, the bad and the down right difficult. The veterans section was not too bad, without much standing water but very muddy. My cant was as good, or as bad as the others, although a bit thin on the right owing to a number of stems that had died after reaching a reasonable size. Difficult to see any detail in the photo because of the small strip of poplars behind but it was mainly three to four inch Hawthorne with a few six to eight inch Field Maples and the odd straggly Spindle.

For once there seemed to be loads of time and all the veterans had the stems laid, staked and bound with plenty of time to fiddle about. 

 The photo below makes my cant look somewhat better than it actually was. It being a bit thin at the far end, and I had made a less than perfect job of pleaching one of the Field Maples, which together with a couple of stakes not as upright as they should have been meant lost marks. However I was generally happy with what I had done and you learn from your mistakes.

This next photo shows the stake line with Frank's cant beyond. He laid a great hedge and beat me into second place with Dave taking first.

Can't remember what the order was in the Seniors but in the Champions it was Gary, Tony and then Bob. Their section was on the corner - drier in some parts than others! Some nice work in there but the fence blocks the view.

And here we see Tony finishing off his masterpiece in what was a small pond.

Hedge number 3 at Avery Hill

We must be doing something right, as Greenwich University asked us to lay another hedge at their Avery Hill campus. The photo below shows the hedge in late autumn when I did an evaluation and measurement visit - before I get comments, it's the one on the left. It's a mixed hedge of Hawthorn and Field Maple with some Privet, Holly and Spindle but growing under mature Oaks has stunted growth in many areas. It runs for 200 meters along the footpath and main road entrance to the campus.

We (SHG - South-east London chapter) started the first traunch of 120 meters on Monday with a tricky ninety degree return from the car bay onto the footpath proper. 

We were extremely lucky with the weather getting two full days almost rain free. The grounds staff had cordoned off the full length of the footpath and, as the hedge was manageable with hand-tools only, we were able to crack on at a good pace. Here we have Ian at work and you can see that, with the hedge being single-planted and rather thin, there is little brash coming out and what there is was used to fill in gaps. One dead tree and a couple of out-of-line medium sized bushes were removed by chainsaw and one of these is in the foreground.

Further down the hedge Fred is working on a mixed Field Maple and Holly section and we were making such good progress that we had the whole 120 meters down by mid-afternoon on Monday.

We were back early on Tuesday morning, which after a short sharp shower turned into another sunny day. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos during the staking and binding process. This was in part because we were none too pleased with the materials supplied. We had no control over the supply of stakes and binders and were shocked by the lack of any quality control. Not only were a large proportion of the binders far too thick to be manageable but the stakes were uneven, crooked and sharpened at the wrong end! If you think I'm joking take a look at this example.

Notwithstanding the quality of the stakes and binders, we made a fist of finishing off the job and below are a few shots of the completed hedge. The first photo shows the start from the car bay end.

 

Sorry about the shadow in the next shot - I may take a few more when I go back tomorrow to put the SHG sign on the hedge.

Despite a two hour wait for the stakes and binders to be delivered, we finished off this first traunch in good time on Tuesday, and at 20 meters per man per day I think it was pretty good going. Well done Fred and Ian.

And this morning, just before the rain started.