Devon style

[AHPP]

Why does only Devon use bank hedges? Availability of stone for the faces? Plenty of other places have stone. 

[Squaredy]

12 hours ago, AHPP said:

Why does only Devon use bank hedges? Availability of stone for the faces? Plenty of other places have stone. 

Cornwall and Pembrokeshire as well.

[AHPP]

OK. South West generally. Same question. 

Edited February 17 by AHPP

[AHPP]

Speaking to a hedgelayer mate just now and he reckons the styles were just the product of a very unglobalised world. You’d marry a girl from the next village and might see a hedge there, but no further afield. Still not a full answer. 

[Dan Maynard]

I believe it's an ancient practice, evidence for bronze age fields in Cornwall and on Dartmoor. I guess it has to do with the local quality and quantity of stone too, not enough for dry stone walls but too much to leave in the middle of the field so banking up the boundaries makes sense.

[AHPP]

Asked a former Devon dairy farmer about it and he rurally mumbled something about banks being boundaries between different soils.

[Peewit]

On 17/02/2026 at 20:00, Dan Maynard said:

I believe it's an ancient practice, evidence for bronze age fields in Cornwall and on Dartmoor. I guess it has to do with the local quality and quantity of stone too, not enough for dry stone walls but too much to leave in the middle of the field so banking up the boundaries makes sense.

^^ This. Plus the west country is wet and in Devon often the ground is boggy and poorly drained so dry-stone walls don't last long unless they're on high and dry moorland. A double comb hedge on a bank formed from a cast-up drainage ditch makes perfect sense in that environment and covers several bases in one go. And this style was developed in sheep country. Sheep can't roll under a hedge that's high on a bank above a ditch. It was simply the best solution to livestock containment given limited resources. That's how all regional hedgelaying styles came about. Work with what you've got, adapt and use the style best suited to the situation. Personally I've got no time for regional pedantic-ness.

Edited 1 hour ago by Peewit