High Hay

The Shire-hobbits crossed the river Brandywine and settled its eastern banks in the year III 2340 (or 740 by the Shire-reckoning; that is, about seven centuries before the War of the Ring). There they founded Buckland, a narrow stretch of land running between the Brandywine to the west and the trees of the Old Forest to the east. These early Bucklanders soon discovered that the trees of the forest to the east were far from ordinary. They could move at times, and whisper to one another, and they held a deep hatred for the Hobbits who had settled on the edge of their domain.²

To protect themselves from the forest, the Bucklanders planted a great Hedge that ran from the northern end of their land to its southern tip, a distance of some twenty miles. This was the High Hay (a hay being an old word for a boundary fence or hedge), though it was more commonly referred to simply as 'the Hedge'. The High Hay began in the north near the Brandywine Bridge, and there the Bucklanders made a guarded gate on the road, the North-gate of Buckland. From this gate, the Hedge ran eastward and southward, passing around the villages of Newbury and Crickhollow, before turning to run directly toward the south. It eventually reached the banks of the Brandywine again at a place that came to be known as Haysend.

We are not told exactly when the High Hay was put in place, but it would presumably have been created relatively soon after Buckland was settled. Over the generations that followed, the Hobbits of Buckland tended and maintained their defensive Hedge, and it grew tall and thick. In at least one place (a little northward of the village of Crickhollow) the Hobbits created a way through the High Hay: a brick-lined tunnel guarded by a locked gate that passed under the Hedge and emerged on the forest side.

Even with the High Hay in place, the trees of the Old Forest remained a threat, and at one time, they moved right against the Hedge. The Hobbits retaliated by cutting back the trees and burning a long strip of land eastward of the Hedge. They gathered the felled trees in a glade within the Old Forest and created a great bonfire. This Bonfire Glade remained clear long afterward, and the trees of the Old Forest drew back from the High Hay, though their hatred of the Hobbits grew even fiercer.

At the end of the Third Age, a stretch of open land still remained between the High Hay and the Old Forest, running for about a hundred yards between the Hedge and the trees. The people of Buckland would still at times pass through the Hedge,³ but the danger of the forest was no longer immediate. The Old Forest remained perilous, however, to those who chose to travel beyond the High Hay and into the dark woods beyond. Seeking a secret way out of the Shire, Frodo Baggins and his companions did just this as they began their journey to Rivendell. They were drawn in and captured by Old Man Willow, and very nearly became the first victims of the Old Forest in generations. Their quest would have come to an early end if not for the timely arrival of Tom Bombadil, a power greater even than the old evil of the forest.