Making Welsh Hedgerows important again
This October marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter for Caerphilly Woodlands Trust as we join and commence work with the Urban Long Forest Project.
After more than a year of planning, we are delighted to be taking part in this inspiring initiative, which is focused on protecting, restoring and celebrating hedgerows across Wales while building the local skills needed to care for these invaluable natural assets.
At Coed y Werin, our volunteers will begin restoring sections of our ageing hedgerows through the traditional craft of hedge laying, while also filling gaps with new native planting to strengthen these important wildlife corridors. Best of all, we’ll be learning alongside experienced professionals who will teach us this centuries-old countryside skill, ensuring it can be passed on to future generations of volunteers.
More Than Just a Boundary
A hedgerow is far more than a line of shrubs separating one place from another. It is a living ecosystem.
A healthy hedge provides blossom for pollinating insects in spring, berries and nuts throughout autumn, shelter during the harsh winter months and safe nesting places each breeding season. It acts as a wildlife motorway, allowing animals to move safely through the landscape between woodlands, ponds and grasslands.
Sadly, around 78% of hedgerows in Wales are now considered to be in unfavourable condition, reflecting decades of neglect, loss and fragmentation. By restoring these precious habitats, we are helping to reverse that decline, one hedge at a time.
A Lifeline for Wildlife
The importance of hedgerows cannot be overstated.
They provide homes, food and safe passage for an astonishing variety of wildlife including:
- 🦔 Hedgehogs searching for food and shelter.
- 🐭 Hazel dormice travelling through connected woodland habitats.
- 🦇 Bats, including pipistrelles and brown long-eared bats, using hedges as sheltered flight paths while hunting insects.
- 🐦 Robins, wrens, blackbirds, song thrushes, yellowhammers and many other birds nesting safely amongst dense branches.
- 🦎 Slow worms, common lizards, frogs, toads and newts finding cool, sheltered places beneath the hedge.
- 🐝 Bumblebees, solitary bees, butterflies, hoverflies and countless other pollinating insects feeding from blossom and sheltering within the hedge.
- 🍄 Fungi, mosses, lichens and wildflowers that create healthy soils and support the entire web of life.
Every restored hedge strengthens biodiversity and helps reconnect habitats that have become fragmented over time.
A Hedge That Feeds Everyone
Our hedgerows are also a remarkable natural larder.
Native species such as hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel, elder, crab apple, dog rose and blackberry have sustained people and wildlife alike for centuries, providing berries, nuts, fruits and flowers while supporting thousands of insects that, in turn, feed birds and mammals.
The edible British hedgerow guide is a wonderful reminder that these living boundaries are full of seasonal treasures waiting to be discovered and appreciated.
Learning Old Skills for a Better Future
Perhaps the most exciting part of this project is the opportunity for our volunteers to learn a traditional rural craft that has shaped Britain’s landscapes for hundreds of years.
Hedge laying isn’t simply cutting branches, it’s understanding how trees grow, encouraging new life from old stems, creating stronger, healthier hedges and managing them in harmony with nature. It is conservation in its truest sense, working with living plants rather than replacing them. For centuries hedge laying has produced secure boundaries without relying on fencing. The interwoven stems form a strong, flexible barrier that continues to strengthen as it grows.
By learning these traditional skills, our volunteers will be helping to preserve an important part of our countryside heritage while developing practical conservation skills that will benefit Coed y Werin for many years to come.
Looking Ahead
This is just the beginning. Once we have started and over the months following we’ll be sharing photographs, progress updates and stories from our hedge laying sessions as our volunteers develop their new skills and watch our hedgerows come back to life.
Together, we’re not simply restoring hedges, we’re restoring homes for wildlife, reconnecting habitats, preserving traditional skills and investing in a healthier landscape for future generations.
We can’t wait to get started.
More Than Wildlife – A Relationship with Nature
For thousands of years, people didn’t simply walk past hedgerows, they lived with them.
They gathered food from them, sought medicine within them, watched the changing seasons through their blossom and berries, and filled them with stories. Our ancestors believed that certain trees protected homes, that spring flowers brought hope after winter, and that ancient hawthorns should be treated with great respect.
Whether these tales were fact, faith or folklore almost doesn’t matter. They taught people to notice, to care and to value the living world around them.
Today, science explains what folklore could not.
We know that a healthy hedgerow is one of the richest habitats in our countryside, supporting birds, bats, dormice, hedgehogs, pollinating insects, reptiles and countless other species. It stores carbon, connects fragmented habitats and helps nature recover. Yet perhaps the greatest lesson is one our ancestors already understood: when we care for nature, nature cares for us.
At Caerphilly Woodlands Trust, we believe conservation is about more than managing habitats. It is about rebuilding our relationship with the natural world. Every volunteer who learns to lay a hedge, every child who discovers a blackberry, every person who pauses to listen to birdsong or notices the first hawthorn blossom is taking another step towards that relationship.
For us, hedge laying is not simply restoring a boundary. It’s continuing a conversation that has existed between people and nature for centuries. As we learn this traditional craft, we are rediscovering and contributing to our place within the landscape itself.
Perhaps that is the greatest gift our hedgerows have to offer. They remind us that we are not separate from nature. We have always been part of its story, and now we have the opportunity and the responsibility to play our part in the next chapter.
Some Irish Folklore of the hedgerow.
The Hawthorn. Sceach Gheal.
Classified in early Irish law as an Aithig fedo or Commoner of the Wood. The hawthorn is known by a variety of different names, the May tree, the beltane tree, the May blossom, the whitethorn, the Quick set tree.
In Irish it is Sceach Gael but also known as the Faerie tree for it is said to guard the entrance to the faerie realm and it is still considered bad luck to harm one.
You may however collect sprigs of flowers during the month of May to place in and around the home to banish evil spirits or misfortune (always ask the guardians of the tree first).
There are many superstitions surrounding the hawthorn and here are just a few of them:
During birth, if a calf is born prematurely hanging its afterbirth on a hawthorn tree was said to magically protect it and give it quick growth (one of the other names given to the hawthorn is quickset as it will take very easily as a cutting) This could be magic by association?
The hawthorn has long been associated with fertility and at Beltane (May 1st) young women would take a sprig of blossom and keep it close as a way of attracting a husband.
At dawn on the morning of Beltane, men and women would bathe in the morning dew of the hawthorn blossom to increase wealth, health, luck, good fortune, and beauty.
Women would become more beautiful and men, by washing their hands in the dew, would become skilled craftsmen. Today it is still practiced, and it is one of the woods used in the ‘handfasting ritual’ as it will ensure a lasting relationship.
A handfasting is an ancient Celtic tradition in which two people’s hands are gently bound together with ribbons, cords or woven cloth as a symbol of their commitment to one another. The phrase “tying the knot” is thought to have originated from this practice.
The Ash. Fuinseóg.
In early Irish law the ash was classified as Airig fédo or Nobles of the Wood.
The fascination of the Ash tree traces its roots to the ancient times. The druids believed that ash had the ability to direct and blend the masculine and feminine energy.
Some Druids used ash to make their staff. The staff then acts as a connection between the realms of the earth and the sky.
In folklore ash was referred to as a home for fairies. A staff of ash is hung over door frames for protection as it will ward off evil influences, ash leaves can be scattered in the four directions to protect the house against witches and psychic attacks.
Despite its role in protecting against witches, the ash is also used by them. The ash is their favourite tree for making ritual dolls into which they stick pins!
Many superstitions surround the ash tree; it is believed that the ash tree will be the first tree to be hit by lightning. The ash tree was believed to have a particular affinity with lightning. So according to legend, standing under an ash tree during an electrical storm would be even more dangerous.
The ash is an important woodland and hedgerow tree, along with the Oak Ash is one of the last trees to come into leaf and according to folklore, the one that comes into leaf first, gives us an indication as to what the weather will be like for the summer:
“Ash before the Oak, you can expect a soak, but Oak before the Ash, expect a little splash”
Sailors believe that if they carve a piece of ash wood into the shape of a solar cross and carry it with them then they will be protected from drowning.
It was thought if you carry a few ash leaves they will act as health charms and it was even believed that to gain the love of the opposite sex, you should carry some loose leaves in your pocket.
Another belief was that burning ash wood at Yule would bring you prosperity (the Yule log).
Medicinal purposes
Numerous uses of the ash tree for medicinal purposes are known. The bark, being very astringent can act as anti periodic, it was also recognized as a remedy for flatulence!
Ash treatment could also help alleviate rheumatoid arthritis, help restore order to the liver and spleen and was acclaimed for laxative property.
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To learn more about the Urban Long Forest project and its launch in Caerphilly on the 6th August click the link below
