Rural Life Special:
Occold Hedgerows

What did we find? Well, that 47% of the hedges in the parish contained eight or more species with some hedgerows containing as many as fourteen. These numbers are indicative of very old hedges. Max Hooper, an English biologist, discovered that there was a correlation between the number of specific, signature species in a 30 metre length of hedgerow and the age of the hedge. Signature species include shrubs such as blackthorn and spindle but exclude woody climbers such as ivy and bramble. Applying Hooper’s Rule to Occold’s hedgerows suggests that many are several hundred years old, some possibly as old as 700 years.

The average frequency of occurrence of these older, richer hedgerows throughout the county is 35% so the parish is well endowed with a rich hedgerow heritage.

The distribution of species rich hedgerows was interesting. They in effect formed a ring around the parish boundary with the centre of the parish containing low diversity hedges, or, none-hedge boundaries, such as fences or ditches. Why this asymmetric distribution? It’s difficult to say, but could either be natural development of the field structure or, more likely, a legacy of Whitehall policy in 60’s and 70’s.

The range of hedgerow flora was fairly typical of East Anglia. Shrubs included blackthorn, hawthorn, rose, elder, hazel, ivy, old man’s beard, spindle, honeysuckle, black bryony and the less common white bryony. Hedgerow trees included cherry, field maple, pedunculate oak, ash, sycamore, willow, lombardy poplar and the comparatively rare black poplar.

Mature elms were also found; these were discussed in an earlier article. No veteran trees were discovered, defined as having a girth of 4.2 metres at 2 metres from ground level, but one oak was found to the south-east of the village with a girth of 4.1 metres, so it almost qualified. This girth implies the tree is approximately 230 years old, a sapling at the time of Napoleon and the battle of Waterloo.

John Hewitson

John raises some interesting questions so we asked Guy Ackers, the Chairman of the Suffolk Hedgerow Survey if he had any answers:

It’s easy to speculate, but if the hedgerows that have been attributed to Hooper's Rule are unimproved since the Enclosures Act in mid 18th century and are 700 years old, there could be an answer to the question, "why are there less species rich hedgerows close to the centre of the parish?" Is it possible that the residents (in the centre of the parish) had to forage for kindling and wood for their fires, thus stripping the hedgerows near the centre? Alternatively had there been cattle and other livestock in the enclosures near to the habitations, the hedgerows could have suffered over the centuries and become eroded away through constant browsing. It would be a great help if you brought the parish recorder or historian into the debate as she or he may well have the old 1832 tithe map giving the field names and more importantly who the owners were 180 years ago.

The very high frequency of hawthorn and blackthorn in Suffolk is recorded as far back in time as 2000bc and maybe a lot earlier than that. When early man stopped being hunter gatherers and started growing their own crops, they needed a system of marking the boundaries of their land holding. So they dug a ditch and piled up the spoil into a bank, planting on the top, rows of 'quickthorn' (as the historians called it in those days). The nature of these shrubs kept the cattle inside the boundary very well. The history of hedgerows is absorbing to say the least as a result of man's intervention and help from the odd bird or two, squirrel and other animals storing its food, over quite large distances.

Just one final point of community and parish interest. As a result of stewardship schemes largely but of individual landowner initiative as well of course, there has been recently the introduction of 3 and 6 metre buffer strips around field margins. These primarily are for the benefit and use of ground feeding and nesting birds and other animals such as shrews, voles, grass snakes and many others. The buffer strips also act as corridors for wildlife to use to get to and from their habitats, such as the great crested newts.

This has been a great success but it can have a drawback if ramblers and dog walkers reckon on using them for their morning exercise or for afternoon picnics, to quote two occupations of many. These strips are on private land and are not open to the public. Regular use will naturally defeat the purpose of their creation by disturbance, litter and other unpleasantness and therefore should be avoided by the public at all times, unless of course there is a designated public right of way alongside.

The other important point to finish with is that if there is no hedgerow alongside the strip, there is no shelter or refuge for birds and other wildlife to run to when predators hawk along the strip looking for the newly colonised food nicely served up by the strip. This is one of the database facts that the hedgerow survey highlights for ultimate use by landowners and the funding agencies post 2010 when all the survey data is lodged with the Suffolk Biological Records Centre, if and when landowners want to use it as it certainly will not be forced upon them. Best wishes

Guy Ackers