The GuardianUK News & Comment• 1 min read

English Heritage trains new generation of scythers to maintain meadows and craft

Published 17 September 2026, 5:00am

Initiative aims to keep alive age-old skill, and at Muchelney Abbey in Somerset improve habitat for rare shrill carder bee It sounds like something out of a Thomas Hardy novel: a merry band of men and women roaming the West Country cutting meadows by hand in exchange for hunks of…

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