A short YouTube video showing the hand cutting method used traditionally  to harvest the turf

A short YouTube video showing a machine at work. Often called a “sausage machine”, it is loaded with cut turf using an excavator. The wet, pliable turf is squeezed out of the machine and laid on the ground to begin drying out. The continuous output from the machine is chopped lengthways as it emerges, to a similar size of a hand cut piece.

Turf has provided a source of energy for cooking and for heating the homes of the inhabitants of the lands for many centuries. It is still used, on a smaller scale, up to this day - though as often as not it is machine cut rather than by hand. Here are images of turf cutting, ancient and modern.