Public Places
Countryfile’s Matt Baker went in the cherry picker to have a go at cutting the hedges; a day of filming that went really well, but only lasted two minutes on the TV!
New paths have improved visitor access
team, we should be proud of the woodland.” Another improvement that David has
initiated brings us to the famous yew trees that form such phenomenal shapes around the castle. Everybody asks about the yew trees. Matt Baker, from BBC Countryfile, even went in the cherry picker to have a go at cutting the hedges, a day of filming that David said “went really well”, but for “a long day’s work, it only lasted two minutes on the TV!” Traditionally, long ladders were used to cut the trees, and David shows me an old
photograph of a man on a plank at the top of the tree using a sickle. “Obviously, health and safety stops all that now.” The trees started as topiary, or “small lollipops”, but have grown to create an effect like nothing I have ever seen before. “You get the lovely shapes in the hedges. Big cloud hedges aren’t they? People see faces and all sorts in them” David says. Now, the team use cherry pickers to cut
the hedges, and they have developed a more efficient way to get the machine, which goes 14m high and is less than a metre wide
when folded, behind the hedge. Gabion baskets were installed on the Aviary Terrace, which they lift the cherry picker onto using a crane. “The main yew hedge cutting usually starts around August, and work through to October time.” There are several different views of the
yew hedges, depending on where you are in the grounds, but I was lucky enough to overlook them from the top of the East side of the castle, which is currently inaccessible to visitors. Last year, the castle had an appeal to raise funds to open up that side to the
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PC FEBRUARY/MARCH 2016 I 95
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