The prince of scythes
Charles loves ‘doing a Poldark’ – with a little help from his lady gardener
SCYTHING is undergoing something of a renaissance, it seems, thanks in no small part to a semiclad Ross Poldark.
But he isn’t the only man to appreciate the benefits of time-honoured techniques. Prince Charles, so long a champion of traditional farming methods, has unexpectedly found himself at the forefront of the revival.
While he admits that he is no Aidan Turner – who plays Poldark in the hit BBC drama – the prince can often be found swinging his own specially made scythe in the wildflower meadow at Highgrove, his country estate. And while
‘He remembers the wild hay meadows’
scything is a tradition going back 2,000 years, it’s far from a rich man’s hobby.
The technique is usually quicker than using a modern strimmer, and there is no noise, vibration or pollution.
More crucially, it plays a vital part in the resurgence of the traditional British meadow, currently disappearing from our countryside at an alarming rate.
This week the Daily Mail joined Charles’s head gardener, Debs Goodenough, as she oversaw the annual late- summer scythe at Highgrove in Gloucestershire.
The soft- spoken Canadian is as passionate about the tradition as her employer, and can often be found knee-deep in the four-acre main meadow with her Austrian-style scythe. She says these are lighter and easier to use than the more unwieldy English version: ‘The only time you see an English scythe nowadays is hanging from the wall of a country pub.’
She added: ‘His Royal Highness, who grew up in the 50s and 60s, remembers the wild hay meadows that were there in that period. Then the chemical revolution came in and the farmers started to spray everything and you lost all of the wildflowers. Yet wildflowers are what bees, the insects, the butterflies need ... now they are dying off because the habitat isn’t there.’
Scything – as opposed to mowing or strimming – helps disperse seeds more effectively, and gardeners can pick and choose the areas they want to cut. All the blade needs is a light touch with a wet sharpening stone every ten to 15 minutes, and it swishes through the knee-length grass like a hot knife through butter.
Mrs Goodenough said: ‘His Royal Highness was using a horse-drawn mower to cut the meadows for a long time but the trees made that difficult. So now we scythe under the trees where it is hard for them to get.
‘Some people even do it barefoot – although not the prince, I have to stress! HRH is actually a very keen and very good scyther, though.’
Charles’s scythe was made by a Canadian known as the guru of scything, Peter Vido, at the request of the prince’s friend and fellow farmer John Letts. Its ‘snath’ – the handle, sometimes known as a sned (the old English word for branch) – is crafted from sugar maple, the leaf of which is featured on the Canadian flag.
Mr Letts, a Canadian who has lived in Britain for many years, said: ‘Three years ago I asked Peter to make a scythe handle so I could present it to HRH as a thank you for the support he’d shown me over the years.
‘Sadly – and Peter doesn’t actually know this – the scythe was seized by customs officials when it came into the UK, and it cost an arm and a leg to get it out of custody!’
Highgrove’s meadow boasts around 100 species of plant, including bethany, scabious and hypericum, as well as orchids. The elusive flowers now appear in abundance thanks to the prince’s refusal to use pesticides and his passion for scything.
Charles – who recently told the Mail he watches Poldark with his wife Camilla – believes a return to tradi- tion is the only way our over-stretched farming industry can survive.
Mrs Goodenough, 56, said: ‘ It upset HRH so much that with one spraying [of pesticides] you wipe out a hundred years of nature doing what it does best.’ Gesturing at the rural idyll behind her, she added: ‘This, here, is 30 years in the making but it can only get better if we carry on managing it correctly. Do we really want to lose this for ever?’
The royal gardens at Highgrove are open to the public between April and October each year with profits donated to The Prince of Wales’s Charitable Foundation. For details see www.highgrovegardens.com or call 0303 123 7310.