THE CONSERVATION OF ROADSIDE VERGES IN SUFFOLK C . W . PIERCE a n d C . E .
RANSON
Introduction IN March, 1970, the East Suffolk Federation of Women's Institutes invited the Suffolk Trust for Nature Conservation and the Nature Conservancy to address their Annual General Meeting on the subject of roadside verges. At this meeting the origin, wildlife interest and management of verges was described (by C.E.R.) and then an account was given (by C.W.P.) of the conservation of verges in Suffolk, and a proposal for the active participation of Women's Institutes in the conservation of verges was presented. This paper is an extended Version of this joint address. Origin, wildlife interest, and management of verges Roadside verges receive a great deal of attention and have large sums of money spent on them, however ill-managed and neglected they often seem to be. In Suffolk the highway authorities cut or spray them two or three times a year to reduce traffic hazards, to maintain a degree of tidiness, and occasionally to control noxious weeds. The verges suffer from salt-spray in winter, mud and dust all the year, and also the continuing effects of chemical pollution from passing vehicles. They are useful reserves of land for road widening schemes, for laybys, for treeplanting, and, illegally, for additional farmland; they are storage sites for roadstone and grit; they are the ideal places for laying water, electricity, telephone, and gas mains. In addition, they have other uses of a less utilitarian character: at one time or another we have all had our eye caught by a fine display of white campion, buttercup or oxeye or by butterflies or birds feeding on verges and their adjoining hedges. However, what is pleasure to us is life and death to wild plants and animals, and attention needs to be drawn to roadside verges as places where life carries on a perilous existence—an existence which in some places started last year, in others a decade ago, and elsewhere, perhaps, centuries ago. What sort of habitats do verges provide and how did they come into existence? Stone Age men and their successors had tracks connecting the main Settlements; the Romans built a network of roads over the whole country; but the present system of highways evolved principally from pathways, cattle and cart tracks made to serve the Anglo-Saxon and late mediaeval villages, providing access to fields, meadows, heaths, and woods and leading to adjoining villages and neighbouring farms. Much of the land at that time was open, but there were boundary ditches, often with hedges,