Country diary: My favourite hedge bar none | Phil Gates

Willington, County Durham: Every visit I make to it is fruitful, such is its plenty. And today it serves up a colourful surpriseThis magnificent sprawling old hedge, unmolested by axes or flails, weighed down with berries, seeds, hips and haws, is unequivocally my favourite, and deserves to be celebrated with a name. It borders a footpath leading to the site of the former Brancepeth colliery, and is marked on the earliest Ordnance Survey maps, trodden by countless feet over passing centuries.Someone, probably long dead, must have taken a particular interest in one section. Between two mature oaks, there are three apple trees, branches bending under the weight of ripening fruit, and hazels laden with a fine crop of unusually large nuts. Whoever planted them might have had future apple pie with hazelnut pastry in mind; we certainly have. Continue reading...