By Reina Free
As I write this it will be February in two days time. January did have an extraordinary rainfall. Some fields are ploughed, some are waiting for the soil to dry. The dewpond is full and the verges are very muddy. I am walking along my beloved Kings Lane. There is something very beautiful and special about the English country lane. Narrow and winding with high banks and ditches. Some can be very old. Tracks made and used by people hundreds of years ago, on foot, on horseback, by wagons and carts, now by tractor, car and bicycle. And when we walk along these lanes we place our footsteps into those of they who walked these lanes before us.
Kings Lane and Bowood Lane are to me very special. Today I am conscious of the first tremblings of spring. It is exhilarating, quite heady. The badgers have already found the young shoots of the bluebells. Over and high above the field I hear for the first time again the jubilant song of the lark and as I look at the hedgerows I see the honeysuckle quite impatiently already showing frail green leaves.
On both sides of Kings Lane are hedgerows, very carefully and skilfully cut by Kevin Bunce. A legacy of his father the late Charles Bunce of Strawberry Hill Farm and a tribute to him. I was told he was also a master in ploughing the fields. He was a very good farmer.
I like hedgerows. I am planning an exercise to assess the age of Kings Lane. I have been told by people who know how to do this to start by measuring a length of 30 metres of hedgerow. Do this in different parts three times, then count the different species of shrubs and trees and calculate an average. After all this multiply by 100. So for instance if there are seven species – this is thrilling – we conclude that the hedgerow could be 700 years old.
As the hedgerows are not in leaf yet I have to wait a little longer. Just imagine what I might discover, the birds looking down from their own special nesting site. So this is something I am really looking forward to. Give me a little time. There is more to come about Kings Lane and its hedgerows.