FACTS ABOUT LAWNS
- One of the earliest references to a British domestic lawn is a ledger entry concerning buying turf for the London garden of a relation of the Earl of Gloucester in the 13th Century.
- The world’s first lawnmowers, other than sheep, appeared in Britain in 1830 invented by Edwin Beard Budding. Ransomes, Swiss and Jefferies of Ipswich started lawnmower production in 1832.
- The first mass produced lawnmower appeared in 1869 from Follows and Bate.
- The phrase “Shanks’ Pony” is derived from the horse-drawn lawnmower produces by Alexander Shanks in Arbroath in the 1840s.
- In 1902 Ransomes introduced the first commercially available petrol powered lawnmower.
- The first electric lawnmower appeared in Britain in 1926.
- The British cut their grass, on average, at a height below 25mm compared to 50mm in mainland Europe.
- Grass stops growing when the night temperature falls below seven degrees Centigrade.
- There are an estimated 20 million domestic lawns in Britain – the majority in urban and inner-city areas. A conservative estimate of the combined area of these lawns is 772 square miles, larger than the Yorkshire Dales National Park (683 square miles).
- Lawns are lost to building, car parking and the growth of artificial turf. Just imagine the hoo-ha if the National Park authority in Yorkshire proposed digging it up for car parking and building and covering the rest in plastic.