'Our white hawthorn tree'

The title is from a poem by Siegfried Sassoon.

‘The hawthorn is the oldest of the English hedgerow trees, for it gets its name from the Old English word haga, ‘a hedge’ or ‘an enclosure‘, and it was used from Saxon times onwards to make impenetrable fences…. For a brief spell in early summer it is the most beautiful of all the Midland trees, with its continuous miles of white may-blossom glimmering as far as the eye can see….

'In the Midland fields on [May the eighteenth] these miles of snowy hedges reach perfection, so dense and far reaching that the entire atmosphere is saturated with the bitter-sweet smell whichever way the summer wind is blowing. From the hedgerow trees near and far come the calls of countless cuckoos, and the lesser sound of an infinite number of small birds.’

So wrote W. G. Hoskins in his seminal book, The Making of the English Landscape.

Hedgerows have always been part of the English countryside. Some are over a thousand years old, marking boundaries that were determined in the Anglo Saxon period. Today, some of those same hedgerows mark the limits of a parish or county, instead of the bounds of a thegn's estate.

Some hedgerows are recorded in charters of the eighth, ninth or tenth centuries. For others, there is no written evidence of their origin, but there are techniques that can be used to estimate their age.

Sometimes narrow strips of woodland between fields or alongside roads are all that is left of a much larger tract of woodland which was cleared at some time in the past to meet increasing demand for agricultural land.

In the Midlands, many hedgerows date from the eighteenth or early nineteenth century, planted when the landscape was redrawn as a result of Parliamentary Enclosure.



In the past century, many hedgerows were removed, in order to make fields larger and farming more efficient. Now, the importance of hedgerows is recognised and they are being recorded, protected and maintained.

Saints, students and spin

Hagiography, or the lives of saints, was a popular literary genre in the Anglo Saxon and mediaeval periods. The life of a saint might be written to educate readers about the facts of his or her life, to present an example of spirituality for people to follow, or to promote the cult of a particular saint to encourage visitors to his or her shrine.

Saints’ lives were normally written in Latin, and only later translated into English. This is an English translation of the life of St Richard of Chichester (1197-1253), who is believed to have studied at Oxford:

‘Such was his love of learning that he cared little or nothing for food or raiment. For, as he was wont to relate, he and two companions who lodged in the same chamber had only their tunics, and one gown between them, and each of them had a miserable pallet. When one, therefore, went out with the gown to hear a lecture,, the others sat in their room, and so they went forth alternately. Bread and a little wine and pottage sufficed for their food. Their poverty never allowed them to eat meat or fish except on a Sunday or some solemn holy day, or else in the presence of companions or friends. Yet he has often told me how he never afterwards, in all his days, led such a pleasant and enjoyable life.’

Take out the first sentence and this could be a description of student life at any time. ‘Such was his love of learning…’ suggests to the reader that there was something exceptional about this particular student, that the poverty of this stage of his life foreshadows his later saintliness.

Newspaper articles use words and phrases in a similar way to set up expectations in the reader about the person they are reading about. We are told that someone is ‘unemployed’ or ‘public school educated’, regardless of whether this information is actually relevant to the story.

Queen Elizabeth I, who knew a thing or two about spin, took the technique one step further, setting up expectations:

I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman -

Then taking her audience by surprise:

But I have the heart and stomach of a king.

Novelists can use similar techniques to set up, and then confound, readers’ expectations.

And after April, when May follows...

The first of May is International Workers' Day, and a holiday in many countries for that reason.

In England, it is a day when folk customs and traditions are observed and celebrated. The custom of young men and women going out from the towns to the countryside early in the morning to gather flowers and greenery dates back at least to Chaucer‘s time. It was observed by Henry VIII and his court in the early sixteenth century.

A young girl would often be chosen and crowned as May Queen. There would be dancing around the Maypole. The church of St Andrew Undershaft in the City of London is so called because of the great Maypole that used to stand nearby.

May Day is one of the occasions when traditional Morris dancing may be seen. Morris dancing was referred to in the mid fifteenth century. Every region of England has its own Morris tradition, with particular dances and costumes.

Morris dance and music, folk songs and other traditions were in danger of dying out by the end of the nineteenth century. They were collected and recorded by Cecil Sharp and others, so that they may still be performed today.