Winter 2011 Newsletter
1, 2, 3 over the Dee
The friendliest of the local hedgelaying matches is one organised by the Flintshire Farmers Ploughing Society. In this contest no ploughing is involved, just hedgelaying. This is the third of three matches at the beginning the hedgelaying season, so the hedgelaying muscles and skills have been honed up. Most agreeable is the sit down lunch with the farmers’ wives making fresh sandwiches and gallons of tea to quench the parched tongues of hedge layers and wash down the Bara Brith.
Prize Winners at 2011 Hedgelaying Match, Pen-
Photo:Stuart Body
It is five hours of physical graft, this time in the sun. The Flintshire Farmers Ploughing Society have been holding such matches since 1908. The match recognises the functionality of the layered hedge as a stock proof fence and the skills required.
The match judges are looking for clean cuts, the hedge laid off so sunlight reaches the bottom of the hedge to aid regrowth, the hedge stakes evenly spaced and in a straight line, an even build of hedge and a level top.
At 3.30pm more tea and cake are consumed, prizes awarded and £15 cutting money given to each hedgelayer who completes their length to the judges’ satisfaction. The prize and cutting monies are sponsored by Flintshire County Council. This year Wirral Countryside Volunteers were placed first, second and third in the novice class, a great triumph. More importantly Wirral Countryside Volunteers mix with others of greater hedgelaying experience and thereby raising the group’s hedge laying standards. A well laid hedge is a delight to the eye.
The Wirral Countryside Volunteers‘ hedgelaying skills improve, through the group’s free hedge laying training days and participation in local hedgelaying matches. We have recently been invited by the Friends of Greasby Library to lay a hedge at the library’s reading garden and give a talk on hedgelaying. Some justifications are required as hedge laying is radical and does look severe but the hedge is renewed from it’s base and thickens up considerably.
If you would like to know more about hedgelaying there is a free talk, “Hedgelaying: what it is and how to do it” on Thursday 12th January at Greasby Library at 7 p.m. Please book with the library: telephone number 677 5714. To see hedge laying in action come along to the library on Sunday 22nd January from 9.30 a.m. to 3.30 p.m.
Paul Loughnane