The Welsh border country. A landscape of half-timbered buildings, hedge-laying traditions, and craft skills that belong to neither England nor Wales but to the border itself.
The Marches - the borderland between England and Wales - have their own distinct culture, neither fully English nor Welsh. The half-timbered buildings, the hedge-laying traditions, the particular style of craft work found here all reflect centuries of cultural exchange across a border that was once the most contested in Britain. The landscape is defined by its hedgerows, which are laid in a Midland style unique to this region.
The Archive documents the Marches as a place where craft traditions have evolved in response to a particular landscape and a particular history. The hedge layers of the border country maintain thousands of miles of living hedgerow using techniques passed through apprenticeship. A properly laid hedge is a stock-proof barrier, a wildlife corridor, and a piece of landscape architecture that will last for decades. The skill takes years to learn and is specific to the materials and terrain of the region.
A tradition older than England itself. The men who still build and fish from coracles on the rivers of Wales and the border counties - and the question of what happens when they stop.
The hedges of the Welsh Marches are living structures - laid by hand, maintained across generations. The hedge layers carry a craft that shaped the English landscape.