Old hedgerow, Airy Holme

A few scraggy hawthorn trees. A relic of an old hedgerow. The lower branches have been well browsed by sheep.

A boundary is shown on the Ordnance Survey Six-Inch map of 1856.

It is commonly believed that the age of a hedge can be estimated by counting the number of species in it. True, the longer a hedge has existed, the more chances new plants will have had to establish themselves. But, it is obvious here that the theory is not infallible.