[Greengage]

I thought i saw something here recently about the name for a townland divided by a hedgerow, anyone know what the name is, Also not garden related but anyone know how townlands are formed.

[tagwex]

Not quite what you are after but it might set you off down the road. I read most of it, quite interesting actually. http://www.dardni.gov.uk/field_boundaries.pdf

Townlands are divided by many features, with hedgerows, I would imagine, being the most common. Roads and waterways/coastline making up the majority of the rest.

[Greengage]

tks for that, I collect the hedgerow surveys of Ireland, dont ask , Im just curious about these things, But I thought recently someone here in reply to something about hedgerows had a name to describe a hedgerow boundary , maybe it was a local name something like Merle or merne, not to worry tks for looking.i was invited back to a site i did a lot of work on to view the progress of the hedges I planted and advise on maintenance one hedgerow divides a townland boundary from another and i mentioned there was a name for this (Me and my big mouth), There was also a discussion with the neighbouring farm owner as to who was responsible for maintenance of the hedgerow on a townland boundary, I did not know the answer to this.

[tagwex]

Check out the 'S' marks on title deeds for ownership of a fence/boundary and therefore the maintenance of same.

[Greengage]

Can you explain S marks plz.

[tagwex]

There is a proper name for them but it eludes me at the moment. Look at any title deeds map and you will see an s with a line through it. Whichever side of the boundary the s is on indicates ownership of the boundary.

[Good guy]

If you look at the Ordnance Survey of Ireland (OSI) website, on the six inch to one mile scale maps, you will see those symbols to show how a stream or ditch, for example, is legally attached to an adjacent piece of land.
The division of land into units described as townlands goes back to Gaelic pre-Norman times and probably relates to portions of land that were then easily describable through geographical features or in terms of agricultural or other use.
If you look up 'Townland' on Wikipedia you will find a very Informative article.
Question - Which came first, the boundary or the hedge?
Anyone living near the border with Northern Ireland will have noticed that, almost without exception, the border (when not in a lake or the sea) is a hedge, stream or river.

[Greengage]

Cheers tks for that

[tagwex]

Spent some time checking for the name of those dam marks, rang three people to no avail. I will persist until I get it. In the UK they are called T-marks with the horizontal part of the T on the ownership side.

[tagwex]

Time to retrace my steps here as I have been leading you astray. Those marks shaped like an elongated S, still nameless, do not have a line through them. I was thinking of something else. They can be found on 1:25" OS maps and they define smaller parcels of land being linked to larger pieces where the acreage is shown for the large parcel only. As the map would be too cluttered if the acreage was shown for every parcel. So, where you see these symbols means more than one parcel of land is included in the acreage and NOT the ownership of the boundary.
Good Guy, you will only see these on 1:25" maps and not the 1:6" maps that you mentioned.

[Good guy]

I stand corrected!

[tagwex]

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat! Again?

[Good guy]

I never said I was perfect. I merely strive for perfection.

[tagwex]

Ugggggggh. You have just reminded me of an old professor I had many years back and one of his favourite sayings was "We must strive for perfection".