Meikleour Beech Hedge

The Meikleour Beech Hedge, in Meikleour near Perth in Scotland, has been recognised since 1966 as the longest hedge in Britain and the highest of its kind in the world.

The hedge was planted in autumn 1745 by Jean Mercer and her husband, Robert Murray Nairne, on the Marquess of Lansdowne's Meikleour estate. It is said that the hedge is a living landmark to the men who planted it; they were Jacobite sympathisers who were called to fight in the Battle of Culloden on 16 April 1746, and none of them returned alive. In order to remember them, and her husband who also died in the battle, Jean Mercer said that the hedge should be left to grow towards the heavens.

And grow it did; over the last few hundred years, the Meikleour Beech Hegde has grown to an incredible height of 30m and is 530m (one third of a mile) long. In fact, it is so huge that the process of cutting and re-measuring the hedge takes four men approximately six weeks to complete; in 2019 this operation cost the Meikleour Trust a massive £90,000. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, this process is usually only completed every ten years.

In case you hadn’t guessed, the Meikleour Beech Hedge is made of beech trees. Specifically, Fagus sylvatica. Fagus sylvatica, also known as the common or European beech, is a large tree, capable of reaching heights of up to 50m tall and 3m in trunk diameter; a 10-year-old sapling will stand about 4m tall.

And to be honest that's it really; there isn’t much more to say about this particular hedge, so this is a relatively short blog. I have included a wee picture below, and it looks totally mental, but I’m not sure if I’d necessarily go and visit it, because truth be told it is just a big old hedge. And also last time I was in Scotland I was super keen to visit the world’s oldest yew, and it was quite cool and interesting, but at the end of the day it was just a tree - also that was the day we ended up having a few crashes/fire engine incidents in the motorhome so Jamie may potentially be a bit raging if next time we went to Scotland I made us go see a hedge.



Comments

  1. BridgetFebruary 17, 2022 at 11:55 AM

    Wouldn't like to be driving beside it tomorrow. Specially in a camper van. It's big old hedge mind

    ReplyDelete
  2. CarolFebruary 17, 2022 at 12:57 PM

    That's some hedge!

    ReplyDelete
  3. JeanieFebruary 21, 2022 at 3:31 AM

    Ha ha - you've had enough flora related incidents!

    ReplyDelete

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