“I observed that the Garden was surrounded with a young Hawthorn fence, and ... that they had been sent out from England”
John Helder Wedge (1826)
“Hedges of hawthorn loaded with red berries, sweet brier, and blackberries, - all was too English – it might have been a bit of Somersetshire”
Marianne North (1881) |
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Fields are known largely from their boundaries and the parliamentary enclosure fields in England were typically bounded by hawthorn hedgerows or dry stone walling. While established to contain stock the hawthorn hedgerows quickly became a major visual element of these new landscapes and a key component of much of lowland England’s rural landscape.
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Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) was quickly introduced into Tasmania for use as fencing for stock control. By the 1840’s they had become as in England a key visual element of the island’s rural landscapes with their impact being further heightened by their changing seasonal appearance.
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“Norfolk Plains is with justice named the ‘garden of Tasmania’, and nothing reminds the stranger more forcibly of one’s own dear native land than the beautiful hedgerows of the blooming thorn”
Butler Stoney (1856).
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Today hawthorn hedgerows still dominate parts of the rural landscape of the Northern Midlands and the Meander Valley as well as being found in some areas of the South-East of the state, the Derwent Valley and the East Coast. |
Right:
Hawthorn Hedges, Chudleigh 1988
Hawthorn Hedges, Chudleigh 1988
Westfield, Westbury 1988
Bicton driveway, Campbell Town 2009
Bottom:
Hawthorn Fencing Chudleigh 2009
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