Country diary: this flailed landscape still has stories to tell

Brigstock, Northamptonshire: Hedges have been brutally cut back but memories of ancient oaks live onDespite yet more unseasonably warm weather, autumn has firmly arrived in Northamptonshire, with the ash trees turning yellow and assorted leaves starting to drift. In the grounds of Fermyn Woods Hall - an impressive manor with gothic limestone facades, mullion windows and roofs of locally quarried Collyweston slate - stand a handful of grand poplars. Naked now of their own leaves, they are instead clothed in huge balls of mistletoe.The fields behind the nearby Blackthorn Lodge are bare and brown. Life seems to have drained out of the landscape, with only a handful of yellowhammers and a passing red kite breaking the monotony of the grey drizzle. A tall blackthorn hedge has been heavily flailed; the shattered orange wood points jagged fingers in all directions and the deep blue sloes lie scattered in the grass. While ugly, and not as aesthetically satisfactory as traditional hedge laying, flailing does stop the bushes developing into broken lines of trees, and there are plenty of dense hedgerows here to provide refuge to wildlife, perhaps thanks to flailing. Continue reading...