In this our first Newsletter, it is right that we describe how the Guild came to be set up.

Poor hedging has always been with us, with people trying to cut corners, but there used always to be enough proper hedgers to put things right and to show how to do a proper job.

Nowadays there are many young farmers who have grown up knowing more about a tractor than gapping up a hedge, and, with the use of barbed wire to protect hedges, there has been less need for hedging on farms. This has resulted in farmers getting out of the way of employing hedgers, and Cornwall is suffering more from neglected hedges than from hedges being removed. There are many new Cornish hedges being built, around new house building, barn conversions and alongside road improvements. For the past twenty years or so, people have been complaining that many of these hedges have been poorly built with sections falling down soon after the job had been finished.

Why is it that the standard of so much of our hedging has deteriorated? Many bosses do not know how to write a specification and many hedgers are being asked to do as cheap a job as they can manage. So the bosses get what they ask for - a cheap job - and are surprised when some of it falls down.

Part of the problem has been that in recent years there has been no good way of training new hedgers. Some youngsters have finished up with the cowboy hedgers who "just stand back and throw stones at it". Other youngsters have been at voluntary courses and events where they are given the impression that a couple of days' training is enough. This inevitably leads to poor work, and a misunderstanding of how proper hedging should be done.

The Guild has set up an informal no-paperwork apprenticeship scheme where the hedger gives training for 50 working days to an apprentice on a one-to-one basis, including two 5 day periods with other hedgers. Objective One money is available towards the apprentice's daily travelling. At the end, the apprentice will be able to pass the Guild's one-day practical examination to the Code of Good Practice, and to take on hedging work professionally. We hope to hold the first examination this autumn. The Guild has also helped to set up a two-day introduction to "Caring for Cornish Hedges".

Official approval has been given under Objective One (via Rural Progress) for establishing the Guild of Cornish Hedgers and the Code of Good Practice which means that 50% of our allowable costs will be met.

The practical knowledge of the old hedgers has needed to be written down because they were brought up to know that only a proper job should be done. Some of them are still working, others retired or semi-retired in their seventies, eighties and nineties. By talking with these experienced hedgers, the Code of Good Practice for Cornish Hedging has been written which they are happy with as being a good description of how they were taught to hedge many years ago, and when there were proper hedging competitions around Cornwall with the ploughing matches. Many of these hedgers urged that something should be done to preserve our ancient craft, and so the Guild of Cornish Hedgers has been set up. Among other activities, the Guild regulates the Code and encourages its use.

The categories of membership are Master Craftsmen who are Craftsmen demonstrating the skill of dressing granite in building hedges for special purposes; Craftsmen who have qualified by the Guild's practical examination on the Code of Good Practice, or who are over the age of 50 years and have been professional hedgers for a minimum of 20 years; Supporters who have an interest in and some experience of Cornish hedges and Corporate Members who are organisations which build and/or care for Cornish hedges.

New payment rates came in February 2004 for the Defra Countryside Stewardship. For Cornish hedges (which Defra calls "stone-faced banks") the rate for restoration has increased from £25 to £34 per metre with extra money if stone has to be bought in from a quarry (+£30/m), or where the site is difficult to get to (+£7/m), making a possible total of £71 a metre. Other items include work on stone hedges "stone walls") and for turf hedges ("earth banks") includingfor casting-up (£1.20/m) and for fencing. A much greater alteration in grants comes next year when the whole basis of farm subsidy will be changed, with most of Britain becoming like a diluted Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA). The farmer will only get his grant money if he manages his farm in the way that Defra wants. The Minister for Rural Affairs, Alun Michael, has written to say that our Code "will provide a helpful source of advice and guidance on building Cornish Hedges and will certainly be taken into account for the new agri-environment scheme".

The Guild will be at the rural crafts area of the Royal Cornwall Show and be happy to talk about hedges in Cornwall to anyone interested.

Leaflets describing the Code of Good Practice for Cornish Hedges and the Guild of Cornish Hedgers are available free from the Guild's Stewards.