I grew up on the open downs, but knew that hedgerows everywhere were being ripped out. I also knew that this was a bad thing, like Dutch elm disease and the arrival of the giant combine harvester. Between 1945 and 1997, we destroyed more than half of all our hedgerows, measuring 118,000 miles. It was not until 1997, about the time that Paul Lamb began his apprenticeship as a hedgelayer, that legislation mandated their protection.

These ‘woodland arteries’ define much of the landscape of the British Isles. We have used them as boundaries since the beginning of British agriculture, but hedge planting really took off during the heyday of enclosure. The Romantic poet John Clare viewed the practice as an iniquity destroying the countryside, whose ‘only bondage was the circling sky’. He was born in 1793, during enclosure’s peak. Between 1750 and 1850, more than 200,000 miles of hedgerows were planted. 

Today we see hedgerows as critical elements of our landscape. Craftsmen such as Lamb are preserving not only social and agricultural history, but also the habitat for many species of wildlife. Good hedgerows around fields increase crop yields because they attract pollinating insects and natural pest-controlling predators, assist with