Miss Valerie Greaves. One of the three founding members of The National Hedgelaying Society. Image taken from their website, as was the following text... Hedgelaying declined after the 1939-1945 war due to many factors such as the availability of labour, the introduction of machines to cut hedges, wire fences and changes in agriculture that placed emphasis on production.
By the 1960s hedges were declining at an alarming rate. Lack of maintenance meant that hedges became tall and gappy with sparse growth at the base; in effect a line of trees. Many hedges were grubbed out to make larger fields that could be more efficiently managed by larger machinery.
In 1978 three hedge layers – Mr Fred Whitefoot, Mr Clive Matthew, and the late Miss Valerie Greaves (pictured right) realised that soon the valuable skills of hedgerow management that had been acquired over hundreds of years would be lost forever.
These founder members conceived the idea of setting up a national society to enable the skill of hedge laying to be documented, and passed on to others.
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