Just a short back and sides? Britain's biggest yew hedge gets its annual trim... but with over a tonne of clippings it takes a WEEK to tidy up
For most people, trimming their garden hedge is an afternoon's work.
But this 300-year-old, 40ft yew hedge takes two men and a cherry picker a WEEK to tidy up.
Sitting alongside the mansion of an aristocratic Cotswolds estate near Cirencester, this semi-circular plant costs owner Lord Bathurst £6,000 a year to maintain.
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At over 40ft tall and 15ft wide, this Cotswolds yew hedge is the biggest of its kind in the country
It takes two workers and a cherry picker a week to maintain this monstrous hedge
Lord Bathurst's 40ft hedge can be seen from all over the nearby town of Cirencester
His gardeners spend 80 man hours working on the beast, which is between 6ft and 15ft wide and is 150 yards long.
They lop off the top six inches of new growth, removing nearly a tonne of clippings, which are then used to produce a life-saving drug.
They are sold to pharmaceutical companies, which use yew extract as a key ingredient of Docetaxel, a chemotherapy drug used for breast, ovarian and lung cancer.
Hard at work: Tim Day, right, has been managing the hedge of Lord Bathurst, left, for 40 years
Sitting on the outskirts of Cirencester, the hedge is believed to have been planted in around 1710
Lord Bathurst, 52, said: 'It runs right along the front of the house and you can actually see it from the town as it’s taller than the wall.
'It’s difficult to know exactly how old it is, but we think it was planted in about 1710.'
The father-of-two added: 'Cutting it isn’t too dangerous but you do have to be careful.
'Luckily a man called Tim Day has been cutting it for 40 years so I think he knows what he’s doing.'
Times change: Workers used to manage the hedge with shears on ladders. Now, they have a cherry picker
Before cherry picker platforms the hedge was cut by teams of estate workers with garden shears on ladders.
The Apsley family have been on the estate since 1695 and use most of its 14,500 acres to grow crops.
The world’s tallest hedge is reputed to be the gigantic leylandii hedge at the pinetum in Bedgbury, Kent, which in 2011 had grown to a massive 130ft.
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