Changes on the Offa's Dyke Path

When the re-enactors came over for weapons practice, we had to climb the stile to get into the meadow by the river on the Offa's Dyke Path, just as I'd always had to do ever since I first walked the path.
Now there's a gate - and all the other stiles have been replaced by gates, too, as far as I've been able to walk.
We don't often get the chance to go a really long way on that path now - a combination of having to work for a living and Islay's arthritis - but a few days ago, she had a burst of energy and just wanted to keep going, and I had the time to indulge her. We went as far as the big tree with the mistletoe, which fell down over the winter, along with a nearby tree on the river bank. I was ready to turn back then, so I stood for a moment to take in the view.
There was something not quite right about it.
Then I realised - the big old hedge that bordered the next stretch of the Offa's Dyke Path, over the stile that had now become a gate, was gone!
Well, not gone, exactly - most of it was in pieces scattered across the fields on either side.
The hedgelayer was there, and he'd done a really good job on it. He was about to start on the hedge down the other side of the field, towards the river, which also hasn't been touched for years.
He said what a pity it was that people didn't seem to want to take the time to do things properly these days - the farmer who had hired him just wanted to burn all the cuttings from the hedge in a big bonfire. "Now, when I did a hedge up Brilley way," he said, by way of contrast, "the farmer took a day to go through it all, and he must have got £1,000 of good firewood out of it."