Why Do Men Build Walls?

There are many turning points in a life, but often you don’t recognize them at the time. Sometimes, seemingly inconsequential events can reveal themselves in retrospect to have nudged you closer to your true path, or the expression of your own truth. For me, one of these moments was brief and wordless. It came one day in my early twenties on the grassy slope of a valley in the Pennines.

I was on a break from walling. Some weeks before, along with around ten other men, I had joined a training scheme which would result, on its completion, in a qualification in conservation management. Every weekday morning, a minibus would pick us up outside the Jobcentre and we would travel a few miles outside Sheffield to the clean air of the Peak District, where we would spend the day making maintaining fences, paths and drystone walls.

There were many individual reasons for our presence on that team; some were spoken of, some not. Among our number were army veterans, former builders and a retired teacher; there was little indication that any of us had a yearning for a career in conservation management though. In one way or another, we had tumbled out of our lives’ certainties, and the course provided a routine as much as anything, to which we applied ourselves with varying measures of relief.

Every day, regardless of the weather, it was a privilege to work amid the grandeur of that landscape, but the psychology of the group allowed little space for Sublime reveries. Apart from the occasional shared wonder when somebody spotted a grass snake or a hawk flew overhead, a near-constant stream of playful insults and earthy banter ricocheted between my workmates.

Then, one day in May, when we were working in the bottom of a wide valley, I took advantage of lunchtime to climb the valley slope for a wider perspective. As I stomped upwards, with no particular objective in mind, the wind-blown grass seemed to beckon me higher, offering immersion. Halfway up, I collapsed in a random spot and lay panting, partially obscured, cradled by the long grass. And as the sun broke the clouds, something else spoke to me.

From any high point in the Peaks, you can view the great drystone walling heritage of that region; thin lines of weathered stone drape themselves around the contours of the landscape, enclosing crop and pasture; a testament to the careful and patient struggle of countless generations to squeeze a living from the land. Across the centuries, these austere monuments have clung together by their weight alone. But despite the miracle of this simple technology, no wall can endure forever. Through the years, livestock and weather conspire to gradually dismantle them, and they are continually rebuilt to the same ancient design.

At its base the average wall is three feet thick. At intervals, ‘through stones’ are inserted that span the width of the wall and add strength. Tapering to its peak, the wall is capped with large, rounded ‘cope stones’ which press down to cohere this mortarless creation. The heart of the wall is where the unloveliest material resides, shoved in with less artifice to fill out the construction. But this is also a place of refuge, the voids between stones providing cover for invertebrates. As we worked, ants, beetles and spiders would often rush out from within when we disturbed their havens.

In the hands of a skilled waller, every stone can find a unique, almost pre-ordained place within the wall’s fabric, the idiosyncrasies of each making it the perfect fit in a three-dimensional puzzle that continuously creates and resolves itself. We were not skilled wallers on the whole, but under the tutelage of one, we acquainted ourselves with this ancient craft over the course of six months; playing our part in keeping the tradition alive and saving the farmers time and money.

Idling in the grass that day, I watched as the shifting bruises of cloud-shadows played across the shoulders of the peaks opposite, with walkers minutely visible like insects crawling on mighty beasts. Away and beyond, the cousins of these peaks faded away in a lateral haze.

Below me the grassy valley was a shifting sea of greens, pinks and browns, stirring gently in the meandering air. Every now and then, sudden gusts sent rumours running among the grass stalks, and brushed the hairs on my bare arms as I watched. Way below, a silver stream wound its way to a wooded cleft where oaks and maples clustered thickly.

Everybody who works or walks in the natural landscape knows these soul-moments. Interludes when exertion is paused and some kind of perspective dawns; not of an intellectual kind. It stews in the fibres of weary muscles and the idling heart. It moves by stealth and speaks to the deepest places in you.

As I lay there, chewing a grass stem with the wind tousling my hair, the generosity of the moment was tangible. Springtime blew up the valley, a warm breath carrying scents of everything that was emerging and enduring; peat bogs, heather, sweet new grass and sheep droppings. Things in every state of existence received this breath, from shattered crags to bouncing, newly-spun webs; all were cherished by its softly buffeting caresses, that offered every created thing their blessing, and assured me that I was included.

For all of us that travelled up to those hills, there was a deeper purpose. Whatever ruins we had come from, at least we were now building something. Rebuilding something. A collapse here, a breach there; many layers and textures of life coated us, like the lichens on the rocks that we shifted with our calloused hands. Inscrutable, stoic and steadfast were these men; as men have often had to be at their most bleak and brutal frontiers, walling-off and compartmentalizing in ways that felt necessary at the time. 

Something, in that moment, whispered validation and recognition. There was a softening and a rebalancing; the beginnings of a thaw in some deep, habituated permafrost, as a warm enveloping benevolence surrounded and permeated me. This tender breath felt like a deep acknowledgement of my innermost being, from where shoots of renewal might someday emerge and find their way to the light.

It can take many turning points to turn you in the right direction. Maybe this was a turning point or maybe it was just something I happen to have remembered. But in that moment, I knew what to do. As if a message had been delivered, or a seed successfully sown, my repose came at once to an end. Without knowing why, I stood upright, brushed off my clothes and started the journey back.

Tom George is a writer and musician from the UK with a particular interest in the power of nature to transform wellbeing. He is the author of Keys to the Forest: A Poetic Journey.

The Peak District is a national park, located mostly in the Northern English county of Derbyshire. Running through it are The Pennines, a range of uplands commonly described as the ‘backbone of England’.