Wibbly-wobbly Hedges, Montacute House

Montacute House (owned by the National Trust) has some particularly fine examples of wibbly-wobbly or "cloud" hedges.  The ones at Montacute are yew trees.  Apparently they were not originally designed to be in this shape but during the Second World War, presumably due to a shortage of staff, they were not clipped regularly.  Severe winters in the late 1940s brought heavy snow fall and the hedges buckled under the weight of the snow.  They became permanently misshapen and are now clipped to maintain the "cloud" appearance.

The National Trust's garden at Lytes Cary near Kingsdon has some smaller scale but beautifully clipped box cloud hedges.

A house facing the pebble beach at Porlock Weir has a short section of cloud hedge, although whether it is clipped this way deliberately I don't know.

Wibbly-wobbly hedge close up in the Cedar Lawn Garden

North Garden

Wibbly-wobbly hedge undergowing repair, August 2018

Wibbly-wobbly hedge and Orangery in the North Garden

Wibbly-wobbly hedge in the Cedar Lawn Garden

Wibbly-wobbly hedge and Lord Curzon's Pavilion, Cedar Lawn Garden

Wibbly-wobbly hedge and Montacute House from the Cedar Lawn

Montacute House and wibbly-wobbly hedge from a very parched Cedar Lawn, August 2018

Cloud hedge at Porlock Weir

Cloud hedge at Lytes Cary

Cloud hedge at Lytes Cary