Beautiful Boundaries

Viewed from above, Britain’s agricultural landscape is a rolling patchwork quilt of fields and meadows, most of which were first cleared and farmed hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years ago. Many of these ancient fields are bordered with hedges, or, in some cases, the remains of hedges.

Very often, these hedges too will be ancient in origin, with the trees that reside in them having been preserved into an unusually old age by many years of careful management. Trees that are managed as part of a hedge can live for a very long time. Some of these ancient hedges might even appear on old maps, and can be just as historic as the old routes that they flank.

There is a method for dating the age of a hedge known as Hooper’s Rule. Hooper’s Rule is based on data obtained from old hedges suggesting that the age of a hedge can be determined by the number of species found within that hedge. The age is found by counting the woody plants in a hedgerow over a 30-yard distance and