Wilmslow Historical Society by Mavis Timson

At this month’s meeting of the Wilmslow Historical Society, members welcomed Hugh Beggs as the guest speaker. His lecture, ‘Hedges around the Edges’, presented the history of hedges and hedging in Cheshire. Early farmers discovered that Cheshire’s clay soil and wet cloudy weather meant that grass grew better than grain, hence cattle hedges were needed. After several generations it was declared that Cheshire had ‘the finest dairy pasture in the world’. In order to move the cattle the medieval pack-horse tracks needed to have cattle-proof hedges on either side of the lane and, if drainage was required, a man-made ditch running alongside. Mr Beggs explained that to age a hedge one needs to count the different woody species in a twenty yard stretch and every species represents one hundred years.