This delightful, fact-packed book is so compelling it had me craving a pair of telescopic topiary loppers even though I don't own a hedge ... Let's hear it for hedges!

Daily Mail

[A] quirky, readable book ... On many of its pages Hedge Britannia illuminates a small field of human endeavour that few of us will have ever considered

Sunday Times

Whether your preference is for hornbeam, viburnum or plain old privet, you'll find much to marvel over here. Shear delight

Voyager

One fruit in an orchard of idiosyncratic writing

Boyd Tonkin, Independent

As Hugh Barker observes in his engaging saunter around the subject of hedges and our relationship with them, we are caught up in a struggle with nature, which constantly seeks to return the garden to a state of chaos ... Deploying a nice, easy style, he has woven a good deal of interesting and important information into a pleasantly discursive narrative that is much enhanced by the wealth of hedge pictures

Literary Review

Genuinely eccentric but lively and informative, Baker moves through the past and present of the great British hedge and comes out looking spruce. He trims his material - from the history of land enclosures to modern suburban lifestyles - into a satisfying shape that even garden-haters can admire

Independent