The Whitby Penny Hedge

All sorts of strange things go on in Great Britain! Some of them are ceremonies and customs that have been performed for centuries in certain places, although the reasons for so doing are either uncertain or completely forgotten. One such is the annual planting of the “penny hedge” at Whitby in North Yorkshire.

Every year, on the day before Ascension Day, a small hedge is planted on the east bank of the River Esk estuary that must be strong enough to withstand three tides before being washed away. The hedge must be completed before 9 a.m. The hedge is carefully woven from hazel and willow branches but is only a few feet in length.

Traditionally the hedge is laid by two men, one of whom plays the role of “factotum to the abbot of St Hilda’s” – which is the abbey the ruins of which overlook the town. The factotum blows a horn and shouts: “Out on ye!” (meaning “Shame on you”) three times.

The question that must surely strike anyone is: Why? Two explanations have been offered.

According to local folklore, in 1159 a group of hunters were thwarted by a hermit who gave sanctuary in his chapel to the wild boar they were hunting. They promptly beat the hermit to death, but with his last words he forgave the hunters on condition that they built a hedge every year on Ascension Eve as their penance. They, or their successors, would meet the abbot’s bailiff in a wood and cut a penny’s worth of sticks which they would then plant at the water’s edge before blowing a horn and denouncing themselves.

This sounds highly unlikely for all sorts of reasons, which is why a second explanation is more believable. This is that the custom derives from a medieval practice known as the “horngarth”, which is another name for the penny hedge ceremony. This was an obligation that tenants owed to the lord of the manor – the “garth” part of the word being an Old English term for an enclosure. The horngarth was originally a substantial boundary fence to land belonging to the abbey, but the obligation to maintain the fence had become a token event by the mid-14^th century.

The “penny” may refer to the cost of the knife used to cut the stems, or it may simply be a corruption of “penance”.

Whatever the explanation, the ceremony is still performed every year on the appointed day, and sometimes the hedge survives for more than three tides!

© John Welford