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In parts of Britain, early hedges were destroyed to make way for the manorial open-field system. The root word of 'hedge' is much older: it appears in the Old English language, in German ( Hecke), and Dutch ( haag) to mean 'enclosure', as in the name of the Dutch city The Hague, or more formally 's Gravenhage, meaning The Count's hedge.Ĭharles the Bald is recorded as complaining in 864, at a time when most official fortifications were constructed of wooden palisades, that some unauthorized men were constructing haies et fertés tightly interwoven hedges of hawthorns. Many hedgerows separating fields from lanes in the United Kingdom, Ireland and the Low Countries are estimated to have been in existence for more than seven hundred years, originating in the medieval period. Others were built during the Medieval field rationalisations more originated in the industrial boom of the 18th and 19th centuries, when heaths and uplands were enclosed. Some hedges date from the Bronze and Iron Ages, 2000–4000 years ago, when traditional patterns of landscape became established. The farms were of about 5 to 10 hectares (12 to 25 acres), with fields about 0.1 hectares (0.25 acres) for hand cultivation. The first hedges enclosed land for cereal crops during the Neolithic Age (4000–6000 years ago). The development of hedges over the centuries is preserved in their structure. A typical old Scottish march dyke, but without boundary trees