Bronze Age flood control in Somerset

On the Somerset Levels and Moors flooding is a way of life. Over the past 6,000 years people have learnt to live with rivers overflowing their banks, and the eerily beautiful transformation of their farmland into shimmering waterscapes.

It is an ideal place for Nigel Hector’s business. He is from a long line of withy growers and his family business, English Hurdle, makes willow hurdles. Conversations with Hector always come back to rivers, willow and flooding — and his new venture Willowbank. One of its main ingredients is “spiling and faggots”, an ancient Somerset recipe for preventing riverbank erosion. . .

Somerset has the oldest trackway in Europe — the Sweet track, preserved in peat near Westhay, is at least 6,000 years old.

Spiling uses live willow stakes around 2m (7ft) long and 13cm (5in) in diameter. They are driven in vertically every 46cm (18in) along the riverbank. Lengths of live green willow are then woven in between them, turning the whole bank into a long living hurdle. . .

The beauty of this green engineering is that the willow hurdles put out shoots, and the whole structure becomes stronger as the willow takes root. New branches can be woven in each year. Silt builds up around the hurdles and so the bank can grow naturally.

Annual maintenance and trimming are necessary but the structure is much lighter, quicker, cheaper and more ecologically sound than the artificial solutions, such as concrete and plastic fibre mat. Being flexible, it can bear higher loads than a solid structure.

Posted by David on June 20, 2003 9:33 PM