Over Easter I was fortunate enough to spend a week on a farm in Cornwall. It had been too long since my last visit, and I’d almost forgotten the glory of the ancient hedges that lace the county. They weave and meander across the landscape, their towering banks transforming some sections of laneways into darkened tunnels.
They’re known as Cornish hedges – not, according to a local booklet, to be referred to as hedgerows or walls – but to my eye, they resemble a kind of drystone wall sandwich, two layers of stone filled inside with compacted earth and topped off with vegetation or turf. Evidently they’re irresistible places for plants and animals to live, as they offer soil, stone, shelter, moisture and countless cracks and crevices where life can take hold. Some of these hedges were built thousands of years ago, others are more recent, but it doesn’t take long before they’re cloaked in dense layers of life, from wildflowers to lichens, mosses to oak trees. The stones beneath – the foundations – are soon almost completely hidden from view.
Along the small roads surrounding the farm, the authorities – presumably the local council – appear to have resisted motorists’ calls to flail the overhanging trees and vegetation. There are just a few passing places for cars to pull in, so navigating the narrow roads entails a lot of reversing and patience. The large trees sprouting from the tops of the Cornish hedges – many of them sessile oaks – can grow large and risk toppling the whole structure. Historically, these trees were kept in check through the old practice of coppicing: cutting trees back to their stumps during the dormant winter months – their wood used as a fuel or as a source of building material – allowing fresh shoots to emerge the following spring, in a constant cycle of near-death and rebirth.
Summer is not quite here, but these Cornish hedges are walls of life – vertical rainforests packed with clusters of deep violet native bluebells whose flowers bend and flop to one side. On the banks, primroses and cowslips add a sunny yellow colour. Higher up, out of the hedges’ tops, the blackthorn tree’s frothy milk-white blossom spills down. I’m too early for the hawthorn flower, but its pinky-white buds swell with water drawn from the tree’s roots, ready to burst open as the days warm up.
Ireland has a dismal amount of tree cover but ‘wild’ is partly between our ears
Cornish hedges are works of art, with abundant nature providing the painterly flourishes
Beautifully sonorous blackcaps have discovered the key to a comfortable life
Life had drained from a farmer’s soil. He asked for advice - and nature has made a return
Walking the roads offers a closer look. Tiny holes are dotted across the soil banks as if someone has pricked them with a pencil. These little spaces are the nesting chambers where solitary bees will lay eggs. Pennywort – also known as navelwort, with a dimple in the middle of its circular leaves – ivy-leaved toadflax and crimson-tipped fumitory bulge through the spaces between the stones, while in the damper, shaded corners, ferns take hold, their fronds adding a depth of green to the scene. The young shoots, tightly coiled, curl like bishops’ croziers, a mix of green and dry, papery brown, as if caught between spring and autumn.
On the Aran Islands, the annual Féile na gCloch festival, held each September on Inis Oírr, celebrates Ireland‘s 5,000-year-old drystone tradition
I visit the Lost Gardens of Heligan, a 200-acre estate overlooking St Austell Bay, which was held by the Tremayne family since the 1560s. Once a flourishing garden, it fell into disarray and neglect more than a century ago, when the workers who had tended the land died in the first World War. By 1990 Heligan had long been abandoned, a once-grand estate choked with ivy and brambles. But then, music promotor Tim Smit stepped in, restoring the gardens and reviving many old traditions.
I spot a newly built Cornish hedge close to the entrance, its stones still fully exposed to view. In West Cornwall, these are made using local granite; in North Cornwall, slate is used. Like so many handmade stone walls, the stretch in Heligan stands as a work of art. The slate is arranged in a herringbone pattern – known locally as “cursy-wavy” – and in this bare, pristine state, you can clearly see the endless pockets of space between the stones where plants and creatures will live.
Drystone walls, built without mortar, are found nearly everywhere – in West Africa, South Australia, Kentucky, Canada, Vermont and the Aran Islands. In Germany they have stood for centuries in vineyards constructed to control soil erosion on the steep slopes. On the island of Mallorca, in the Serra de Tramuntana, drystone walls have been used to carve steps into the hillsides, transforming the land into workable farmland while managing the flow of water.
On the Aran Islands, the annual Féile na gCloch festival, held each September on Inis Oírr, celebrates Ireland‘s 5,000-year-old drystone tradition and that of the international community. Over the past few years the festival has drawn in drystone wallers and enthusiasts from across the world – from Slovenia, Cyprus, Croatia and Spain, as far afield as Japan – who gather on the island to share skills, exchange knowledge and honour the art of stonework, where human creativity and ingenuity creates spaces for life.
