THE Ancient Britons planted hedges to keep their cattle in, but we plant hedges to keep them out. Thick and thorny plantings were sometimes part of the defence system of an Iron Age hill fort. Later on, hedges were used to define boundaries—not only to keep animals from trampling on their crops, but also to show where ownership begins and ends. They turn up in the Domesday Book and, a little later, were used to create deer parks, which were designed in such a way that, by careful hedging and ditching, deer could get in, but never get out again. And the Enclosure Acts were statements of ownership by the landlords and of dispossession for the peasantry. The history of hedges has much to answer for.
Agricultural hedges are always planted of one
