On the 17th February it was time once again for the South of England H/L Society annual competition. We returned to the same venue as last year on the Angmering Park Estate, which is a wonderful location in the heart of the South Downs National Park. The weather was glorious and conditions were just right, not too warm or cold. I was competing for the last time in the novice class this year (mainly because I had yet to win it) and regardless of the result I would be moving up to the senior class next year.

This year some new rules had been introduced with regard to hand-tools. Traditionally, the heels of the pleachers were removed with either a billhook or axe, so more points were available if all heels were removed by this method, less if a silky saw was used (even for only one cut). As the novice class is hand tools only (no chainsaws allowed), I decided that I would go for more points by using only axe and billhook on the pleachers.

My cant was reasonable, although a bit thin in places and there were a lot of heavily tangled side branches to be sorted out before the stems could be laid.

I made good progress and was very happy with my cutting and pleaching. The heels seemed to be coming off nice and clean and all was going well. Then, I had a moment of madness. I was cutting one of the biggest stems in the hedge and decided to put a stop cut in near the base with my saw. I thought that it would be okay as I would be removing the heel at a point lower than the stop cut afterwards. Well, it transpired that any use of the saw during the pleaching process contravened the new rules, so that was that.

Undeterred, I carried on and got the hedge down well within time. I was very happy with my cutting and pleaching and I continued to take all the heels off with axe and billhook only. I moved on to staking and binding and again, I was quite happy with my stake line and height of binders.

I finished in good time, but whilst I was trimming up I knew that I would be unlikely to place on this occasion. In hindsight, I probably removed a bit too much from the hedge whilst trying to untangle the stems and my overall finished hedge was a bit inconsistent. Sure enough, this was born out in the results and I placed a disappointing 5th, with my lowest score being for overall finished appearance.

After the judging we retired to a local hostelry for lunch, banter and the prize giving. As always, it was a superb day out among great company and I look forward to our next meet in March. There’s not many meetings left until the end of the season, but before we know it we’ll be back on the ploughing match circuit in September!