One of the most frequent changes to suburban roads is the removal of hedges and the substitution of slatted wooden fencing, often stained an unnatural green or red-brown. This not only breaks up the unifying framework of the boundaries along the road and looks ugly, but fences are not nearly so generous to nature as hedges. Most hedges provide shelter and berries, and if they are dense enough, nesting places for small birds beyond the predation of magpies and squirrels.

Conservation Area policy may stipulate what kind of boundary walls or hedges are permissible. But outside Conservation Areas there is virtually no control, but Village Design Statements can provide supplementary guidance to reflect the special character of a parish.

In many cities and suburbs, householders are removing their road boundary structures altogether and paving over their front gardens and turning them into off-road parking bays. This obviously reduces the amenity value of the road and reduces property values, but also increases rainwater run-off, deprives street trees of water and provides no room for wild life. The London Assembly Environment Committee’s report estimates that two thirds of front gardens in London are paved over – 22 times the area of Hyde Park (1).

Hedges reflect the age of boundaries. Many are remnant field boundary hedges, raised on banks, containing a mixture of locally typical shrubs and trees. Single-species hedges such as holly, laurel or privet indicate more recent purpose built individual plots, and where these hedges run down the length of the road, an estate or housing development – such as the privet hedges of Hampstead Garden Suburb.

Tom Williamson and Gerry Barnes have found that the mixture of species that make up our older hedges is more complex than previously thought, with subtle local and regional variations. They berate conservationists for often ignoring ‘the subtleties of local character,” and replanting hedges with ‘a standard species-rich mix” which do not reflect the assemblages found in the locality. (2)

Bricks Great Bowden, Leics “is well known for its old brick walls’ some of local bricks and many have their traditional rounded (semicircular) copings”.

Stone walls reveal the geology of a place and stone is one of the true indicators of local distinctiveness- walls of dressed ragstone in Sittingbourne, Kent, blue lias in Charlton Mackrell, Somerset, beach flints in Wiveton, Norfolk, greensand in Shaftesbury, Dorset, warm grey limestones in Olveston, Somerset, oolitic limestone of the Cotswolds, limestone of the Derbyshire White Peak and gritstone of Derbyshire’s Dark Peak.

What to do:

Preserve old boundaries.

Make sure the boundary between your garden and the road is in the local idiom.

New boundaries should use local materials (where possible) with traditional coping and pointing, be of the same height and scale.

Get together to produce a Design Statement that can be used by the local planning authority. www . countryside . gov . uk

Ask your local authority to prevent the paving over of front gardens and removal of boundary fences/hedges or walls.

Campaign to reveal the geology – the local brick, tiles and stone of the locality.

Dismantled walls of local stone or brick should be saved and stored in the parish’s ‘store’ for future conservation works / repairs.

Refs:
(1) David Orr, “It’s my drive – why not?", vista, 17 March, 2006.
(2) Tom Williamson & Gerry Barnes, ‘Back to Roots’, British Archaeology, May / June, 2006.