King Charles III is renowned for being a champion of organic, environmentally friendly farming, and for his green-fingered love of gardening. Less well known is his passion for traditional hedgelaying: a craft he has practised on more than 15 miles of hedging plants around his Highgrove estate in Gloucestershire. Hosting competitions there for the National Hedgelaying Society (of which he became patron when Prince of Wales) he has celebrated Britain’s wildlife rich network of hedgerows as “this countryside’s single biggest nature reserve”; hedgelaying has also provided a welcome form of royal exercise!
Another of the King’s private hobbies went public in 1987 when a watercolour of a Norfolk farm scene by ‘Arthur George Carrick’ was selected for the prestigious annual Royal Academy of Arts’ Summer Show – ‘Carrick’ turned out to be none other than the then Prince
