The Hedgelaying Competition

A general view of the event getting underway. There are more round the corner.
Wikipaedia describes hedgelaying as follows:






Hedgelaying (or hedge laying) is a country skill practised mainly in the United Kingdom and Ireland, with many regional variations in style and technique. Hedgelaying is the process of bending and partially cutting (pleaching) through the stems of a line of shrubs or small trees near ground level and arching the stems without breaking them, so they can grow horizontally and be intertwined.[1] The first description of hedgelaying is in Julius Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War,[2] when his army was inconvenienced by thick woven hedges during the Battle of the Sabis in Belgium. Hedgelaying developed as a way of containing livestock in fields, particularly after the acts of enclosure which, in England, began in the 16th century. Today hedges are laid to maintain habitat, promote traditional skills and because of the pleasing visual effect of a laid hedge.[


My extra shows one of the competitors pulling down the vertical stems of the hedge.