Why hazel hurdles still earn their place

A well-made hazel hurdle is one of the most versatile things you can produce from a few acres of woodland. Woven from rods cut during the winter coppice, it will serve as a temporary sheep pen, a windbreak around a vegetable bed, a screen to hide the compost heap, or a gate that swings shut with a satisfying clack. It costs nothing but a morning's work and a bit of wrist strength, and it will outlast most of the plastic netting sold in farm shops.

The craft is old, but it is not precious. Hurdles were once knocked out by the thousand in coppice workshops across the Weald, the Chilterns and the Welsh borders, and the technique is straightforward enough to learn in an afternoon. What follows is the method I use, refined over a good many winters of cutting, sorting and swearing at stubborn rods.

Cutting and sorting your hazel

Hazel is cut between late October and early March while the sap is down and the wood is at its most pliable. Aim for rods of two to three years' growth, roughly the thickness of a finger at the butt and tapering to a pencil at the tip. Anything thicker than your thumb will fight you; anything thinner will snap.

You want two distinct grades:

• Sails (or sails/standards): the uprights, around 1.5 to 1.8 metres long and about 40 to 50 mm across at the base. These need to be straight, seasoned for a few weeks, and stout enough to take the tension of the weave.
• Weavers (or rodds): the flexible rods you bend between the sails. These should be long, whippy and free of side branches. Cut them fresh and use them the same day if you can, as they stiffen quickly once they dry.

Sort your rods into bundles with the butts all facing the same way. A good rule of thumb is that you will need roughly three to four weavers for every sail, depending on how tight you want the weave.

Setting up the sails

A traditional hurdle is made on a simple jig, though you can work on the ground if you prefer. Drive seven or eight sails into the ground in a straight line, spaced about 100 to 125 mm apart. The spacing determines the fineness of the finished hurdle: closer sails make a tighter, heavier panel, wider spacing gives a lighter, more open one.

For a sheep hurdle, aim for around 1.5 metres wide and 1.2 metres high. That is a manageable weight to carry with one hand and a sensible size for stacking. If you are making a garden screen, you can go taller, but keep the sails no more than 1.3 metres above ground or the hurdle will be top-heavy and awkward to move.

Push the sails in firmly — a rubber mallet works well on the butt ends — and check by eye that the tops are level. A wobbly row of sails produces a wobbly hurdle, and there is no fixing it later.

Weaving the rods

Start at the bottom and work upwards, using a simple pairing weave. Take two weavers and lay them either side of the first sail, with their butts pointing in opposite directions. Bring the front rod over the sail to the back, and the back rod over to the front, then cross them at the next sail and repeat. This is the classic pairing weave, and it locks the sails firmly in place.

Keep the weave tight. As you work, tap the rods down with a mallet or the back of a billhook so each row sits snug against the one below. Loose weaving looks untidy and, more importantly, allows the hurdle to rack out of square when it is lifted.

When you reach the top of the sails, finish with a firm row and tuck the ends behind the last crossing. If a rod is too short to reach the far side, join in a new one by laying it alongside the old for a couple of sails and weaving them together. Good joinery is invisible in the finished hurdle.

Finishing, curing and using your hurdle

Once the weave is complete, cut the sail tops flush with a sharp billhook or pruning saw, leaving about 25 mm above the top row. Trim any protruding rod ends neatly on the back face so the front presents a clean surface.

Lift the hurdle off the jig and lay it flat in a dry, airy spot for a week or two to cure. Do not stack hurdles flat against each other while green — trapped damp encourages mould and rot. Stand them on edge, leaning against a wall, and turn them occasionally.

A well-made hazel hurdle will give you ten to fifteen years of service if treated kindly. Treated with linseed oil or a coat of creosote substitute, even longer. Use them singly as gates, in pairs as hurdles for penning sheep, or laced together with tarred twine to make a longer run of fencing. In the garden, they make handsome screens for a seating area or a rustic edging for a raised bed.

Best of all, the whole process is renewable. A hazel stool cut on rotation will produce a fresh crop of rods every seven to ten years, and the woodland will be healthier for it. That, in the end, is the real pleasure of the craft — you are not just making a fence, you are keeping a piece of working countryside alive.