There’s a chill in the air for the first time this autumn, the leaves of the trees that line the field are turning red, gold and amber. In the pale pink light of early morning a snuffling can be heard in the undergrowth.
Eighteenth century churchwardens played an important role in their communities. Vestry meetings were, as the name suggests, held in the church vestry after Sunday services and made decisions concerning a wide range of matters covering much of parish life. This included anything from welfare provision to the maintenance of roads or dealing with crime in their parish. The meeting also elected key local officials like churchwardens and overseers of the poor. Churchwardens were responsible for maintaining accounts of parish income and expenses alongside a variety of other tasks such as vermin control. The wonderfully named Jannion Steele Elliott (1871-1942) studied the Bedfordshire vermin payments and identified a long list of animals concerned including sparrows, polecats, weasels, moles, otters, badgers, foxes, stoats and hedgehogs. These were all creatures seen as a threat to crops or livestock, for instance polecats might eat rabbits, chickens and eggs.
The idea of some of these animals as pests might seem surprising from a twenty first century viewpoint. Hedgehogs for instance were once thought to drink milk from cows’ udders at night and, more sensibly, to feast on birds’ eggs. Today hedgehogs are seen as a friend, they keep garden pests under control and their presence indicates a healthy ecosystem. They are however a threatened species. There are lots of interlinked reasons for the sharp decline in population numbers including habitat fragmentation, roadkill, the use of pesticides and impermeable fencing. Bedfordshire communities today are more likely to be advocating for hedgehog friendly measures in gardens and signage to promote careful driving in areas where they are known to roam.
Understanding how and why attitudes to animals have changed tells us something about not only the challenges that faced Bedfordshire farmers in the past but the conservation challenges of our own times.
