Hedgelayers compete in 'mysterious craft' showcase

More than a 100 hedgelayers have taken part in an annual competition to find out who is a cut above the rest when it comes to the traditional countryside craft.

Saturday saw the 47th National Hedgelaying Championship take place near Chipping Norton, with 115 competitors vying for the overall title.

Each entrant was given five hours to showcase one of eight regional variations of hedge - with Welshman Chris Davies crowned overall supreme champion.

Nigel Adams, from Christmas Common in Oxfordshire, finished second and said hedgelaying - which is used to manage rows and create barriers for livestock - was a "mysterious craft".

"My father was a hedgelayer... and when I was 19 I started work at the National Trust and did a hedgelaying course," Adams said.

He now spends much of the year doing it at farms across the country, and has previously demonstrated the craft in Europe and North America.

At the weekend, Adams claimed four cups, won the South of England veteran class and was crowned reserve champion.

"We do need more hedgelayers," he said, adding that he takes on an apprentice "every year" to help with his "full" work calendar.

"People say it's a dying art. It's not dying, it's not even on a life support system, it's providing work all over the country."

He explained that "historically" every farm would have people to manage its hedges, but this job mostly transferred to machinery in the 1960s and 70s.

But now, he said, people had realised that "after 40-50 years" of being managed by machinery, hedges would "start to give up the ghost".

"Awareness has grown to such a degree that more and more hedgelaying can be seen in the countryside."

Specialising in countryside management, Adams looks after the hedges of King Charles III and previously said the monarch was "passionate about hedgerows" and that it was his "hobby".

"He once said to me 'you've no idea what hedgelaying has meant to me over the years'," Adams remarked.

Could the King come for Adams' national crown next year?