Dear Tony, Brian, Chris and other hedge-laying enthusiasts
We are part of a very ancient tradition of hedge ‘plashing’…………………………..
Hear also what Julius Caesar sayeth in his Gallic Wars, Book 2, 57 BCE (2000 plus years ago)
This bit comes way after ‘all Gaul is divided into three parts’ (tota Gallia tres partes divisa est) just about all the Latin some of us can remember from school!
‘in order that they might more easily obstruct the cavalry of their neighbours, if they came upon them for the purpose of plundering, having cut young trees and bent them by means of their numerous branches (extending) on to the sides. And the quick briars and thorns springing up between them, had made these hedges present a fortification like a wall, through which it was not only impossible to enter, but even to penetrate with the eye’ (quo non modo non intrari sed ne perspici quidem posset)
Trans. W A Mc Devitte and W S Bohn (1869)