Media
WestcountryHedgelayer.com photo and video credits: BEESTON MEDIA
EVENT
Working the Wild: Ancient Skills in a Changing World
Paul Lamb and Ben Short with Lulah Ellender
Part of Festival of the Garden 2025
20 July 2025, 5pm (this event has ended)
Long before rewilding became a buzzword, rural craftspeople were quietly living in deep relationship with the land – shaping it with hand tools, working to the rhythm of the seasons, and maintaining fragile ecosystems with centuries-old skill.
In this evocative conversation, hedgelayer Paul Lamb and charcoal burner Ben Short reflect on lives built at the boundary between labour and landscape. Lamb travels the south-west in a traditional wagon, restoring hedgerows by hand and preserving the wildlife corridors that have shaped the British countryside for generations. Short’s work in the woods – chronicled in his memoir ‘Burn’ – speaks to a longing for simplicity, purpose and reconnection in an age of disconnection.
Together they’ll explore the value of vanishing rural skills, the intimacy of working with nature, and what we might recover – culturally and ecologically – when we live closer to the land.
This event is chaired by author Lulah Ellender.
EVENT
Paul Lamb Of Thorn and Briar
Hay Festival 2025, Sunday 1 June 2025 (this event has ended)
Hedgelayer Paul Lamb takes us on an enthralling journey, celebrating the benefits of hedgerows in our countryside and a way of living that has all but disappeared in recent decades.
From the end of summer until the birds nest in the spring, Lamb lives in his wagon and travels the south-west corner of England, maintaining the ancient boundaries of the British countryside. He gives an insight into his life on the road, explains why traditional management techniques of our hedgerows are essential, and why he chooses to preserve our heritage for future generations.
Known on Instagram as the westcountry_hedgelayer, Lamb has over 180,000 followers.
In conversation with the writer and editor, Kitty Corrigan.
ARTICLE
My mission to save Britain’s dying hedgerows
One of our last master hedgelayers has become a star online, with idyllic videos of his rural life. But it’s the craft that counts, he says.
23 March 2025 10:00am GMT
Read full article in Telegraph Magazine
ARTICLE
My mission to save Britain’s dying hedgerows
Adam Weymouth Wednesday April 09 2025, 5.00pm
This is the second book on hedges that I have reviewed in less than a year, which suggests that they are having something of a moment. More than 100,000 miles of British hedges have been grubbed out since the middle of the 20th century — their maintenance requirements and their impediment to huge machines have no place in a countryside being squeezed for maximum profit. It is a version of progress that is only now being questioned.
Read full article The Sunday Times
If you would like to contact Paul in relation to his media work please use the form below.
Contact
Whether you’re looking to restore a hedge, learn the craft, or take part in a workshop surrounded by nature, Paul would love to hear from you.
For all enquiries, bookings, or course information, please use the contact form.