Patrick Grant gets to grips with scything


When my dad died, his scythe was hanging on its peg in his tool barn. He was the type of man who had pegs for everything; tools arranged by area, fastidiously labelled: hand tools (garden), hand tools (workshop), power tools. He arranged his fuel cans with military precision by colour and size. His house in the Scottish Borders had seven acres, divided up into organic vegetable garden, paddock, woodland, and a meadow that ran down to the Gala Water. To manage his grass he had a small tractor mower, three petrol strimmers, two Soay sheep and a scythe.

About two months back I set about tackling the thigh high grass in my North Yorkshire garden. I’m competent with a strimmer, I spent a summer wielding one in the Colorado Rockies, but the acre I cut still took me the best part of five hours, consumed three tanks of petrol, and left about half a dozen metres of industrial strength plastic strimmer cord in small bits scattered throughout the garden (nettles kill strimmer cord). 

Strimming is a pretty grim business. Behind a steamed up, grass-and-mud-spattered visor, deafened by the whine of the engine, you can see and hear nothing. You need waterproof boots and trousers to protect your clothes from flying plant juice and slurry, and the vibrations left my hands and arms tingling unpleasantly for hours afterwards. And strimming is horribly indiscriminate, mulching everything in its path, including any unsuspecting wildlife. I want my garden to be full of living nature, and I want to enjoy my garden work, so I thought I’d see about putting my dad’s old scythe to use. 

Patrick Grant swings a scythe, cutting the meadow grass
Using a scythe means any unseen wildlife stands a chance of making a safe retreat

Scything is an ancient art, and scythe making is a wonderful old craft full of rich regional variation. A scythe comprises a steel blade and a long, usually wooden, shaft or snath, from the Old Norse sneitha, to cut. Snaths could be fashioned by local woodworkers with relative ease but blade making was highly specialist work. In Belbroughton, in the West Midlands, there had been scythesmiths and scythegrinders as far back as the 16th century, and right up to the mid 20th century the scythe works of Isaac Nash were a large local employer. The village sign depicts the figure of a man wielding a scythe, and the park railings have little scythes on top. The other great blade maker was Tyzack, based at the Stella Works in the great steel town of Sheffield, maker of a huge array of agricultural tools.

Meadows weren’t simply a vital source of animal feed, they supported a rich variety of plants and provided an important habitat for all sorts of wildlife, pollinators, birds and small mammals. Traditionally we left the grass to grow right through the summer, before mowing it for hay before the weather turned in early autumn. When we think of mowing we imagine a machine, but in days past all mowing was done with a scythe. It was time consuming and required skill. Lawns became status symbols because tending them was a luxury few could afford. 

Three old black and white images: a pamphlet with Belbroughton scythe makers on the cover, an advert for scythes from 1951 and an old drawing of scythe poles
The UK has a long history of scythe making, but the Belbroughton works closed in the 1960s, and Tyzack’s shut down in the 1980s

But the need to put more land to arable crops for food during the second world war, and a move to silage (and later haylage), both easier to produce than hay, began a rapid decline, and since the 1930s we’ve lost more than 97 per cent of our hay meadow here in the UK — about 3mn hectares. The Belbroughton scythe works closed in 1968 and Tyzack’s Stella Works foundry followed suit in 1986.

But scythe makers are not the only endangered species. The changes to our farming practices, and the loss of hay meadows and hedgerows, have had a devastating effect on our wildlife. Reversing biodiversity loss has become a national priority and new farm subsidies, controversially in the eyes of some farmers, encourage hay meadow restoration. But already wildlife is returning, and wildflower meadows have replaced the lawn as the new status symbol. And with the return of the meadow has come a return to the art of the scythe. 

A scythe leans against a drystone wall
The scythe that once belonged to Patrick’s father
A close-up of a man in brown shorts sharpening a rusty scythe blade
Steve Tomlin attempts to revive its blade

Needing some instruction, I messaged my friend Robin Wood, former woodturner and now fine axemaker, and founder and trustee of the Heritage Crafts Association. Unsurprisingly, Robin knew the right man, and that man was Steve Tomlin. Steve had learnt to scythe in 2001 while working as a farmhand high in the Pyrenees. On returning to the UK he took up teaching and has been doing it ever since. During the past two decades he has taught rangers at the National Trust, volunteers at National Parks, wildlife groups and gardeners, both professional and amateur. 

The first thing Steve teaches is the set-up of your scythe. The scyther’s day was a long one (they were expected to mow an acre per day) so ergonomics were important. My dad’s scythe (a traditional Scottish pattern) has fixed handles and is set for his shorter stature so is sadly being consigned to the garden tool subs bench.

Steve uses an Austrian scythe, made by the great Schroeckenfux of Roßleithen, high in the Austrian alps. Founded in 1540, it has been making scythes on the same site for almost 500 years, hand-forging steel blades, the ash handles cut from wood from Austria’s beautifully managed woodlands (they still have 48 per cent woodland cover; the UK has 13 per cent). Pole length, handle height, the lift, lay and hafting angles of the blade are all crucial to a good mow and Steve ensured these were all spot on before letting me loose on the grass. 

Two men in blue tops sit on a log in the mowed meadow drinking a cup of tea
Patrick with Steve Tomlin, who learnt to scythe in 2001 and now teaches others this dying art

Correctly set up, mowing with a scythe is far simpler than I feared. Blade touching the earth, I drew a wide flowing arc, 3 o’clock to 11 o’clock, sweeping rhythmically, taking just a few inches of sward (uncut meadow) each time, pausing every now and then to hone my blade with the whetstone because a sharp edge is crucial to an effortless mow and a fine swath (cut meadow). 

Scythed grass is cut in one long piece, and if correctly done will fall smartly into well-ordered windrows, making it simple to collect, and easy to dry for hay. What I noticed most was how connected I felt to my garden. Scything is no more noisy than walking. With no spattered visor I could see as well as hear every grasshopper, butterfly and moth, and could give the grass a warning tap before I swung my scythe. With just a small single cut any unseen wildlife stands a very good chance of making a safe retreat. 

And while the mowing itself involves a minimum of effort, you’re still on your feet for hours, and building your haystacks requires some fairly strenuous fork work, so it’s good for the body as well as the soul. 

The author uses a scythe to cut the grass in the meadow
Scythed grass is cut in one long piece, and if correctly done will fall into well-ordered windrows, making it easy to dry for hay

Scything is, in some ways, a bit like golf or tennis (if your golf or tennis are anything like mine). When first setting out, most of your swings will range between somewhat successful and moderately woeful, but there are just enough that are so sweet — scythe gracefully sweeping a perfect, even swath — that you feel exhilarated, a rush you long to feel again.

Diary of a garden rescue: Part 1

Patrick Grant sits on a drystone wall

Read the first part of Patrick Grant’s series on restoring the garden of his 17th-century Yorkshire house to its former glories

Leo Tolstoy describes this oneness in Anna Karenina: “The longer Levin mowed, the oftener he felt the moments of unconsciousness in which it seemed not his hands that swung the scythe, but the scythe mowing of itself, a body full of life and consciousness of its own”. 

Working with a scythe on a sunny day brings honest rewards. American poet Robert Frost wrote often about the pleasure and truth in outdoor work. Appropriately the last line of his poem “Mowing” is carved into the snath of Steve’s scythe: “My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.”

‘Mowing’ by Robert Frost

There was never a sound beside the wood but one,

And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.

What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself;

Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,

Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound —

And that was why it whispered and did not speak.

It was no dream of the gift of idle hours,

Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf:

Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak

To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows,

Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers

(Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake.

The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.

My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.

Patrick Grant is the founder of Community Clothing, a judge on BBC television’s ‘The Great British Sewing Bee’ and author of ‘Less’ (HarperCollins)

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