The Cornish hedge is an ancient style of boundary structure built of stone and earth found in Cornwall that has major cultural and environmental significance to the area. There are approximately 30,000 miles of hedges in Cornwall, which are rich in biodiversity, stay strong for hundreds of years and are a unique feature of the Cornish landscape – but there are growing fears that the skills required to build them are not being passed down through the generations.
That’s why, last year, the Cornwall Rural Education and Skills Trust (CREST) secured £230,000 of funding from the Cornwall AONB Farming in Protected Landscapes Programme (FiPL) to work in partnership with Cornwall Heritage Trust to deliver a Cornish hedging training and education programme. The programme has gone from strength to strength since its launch, with its raft of training courses, workshops and special events proving extremely popular.
This February, we welcomed CREST co-founders Helen Bowkett and Andrew Cockshaw to our latest Cornish Story Cafe to tell us more about Cornish Hedging and the project’s progress so far.
Nearly 100 people joined us for the talk at Pendeen Parish Hall, which is available to watch in full here.
The talk was made possible by funding from the National Lottery Community Fund, and we’re hugely grateful for its support.
