Lets face it, stone is rock with a publicist. Rocks just get on with it, and have done so for 4.5 billion years, way back to the Hadeon Eon….no biggie. Much later on, oceans, life and humans (we were way beyond fashionably late) turned up to the party that had been literally rocking for Ages. Deep mantle rocks oozing like really slow caramel. Oolitic limestone folding dead sea creatures into rolling Hills like ancient Sourdough. Their immense secret lives often hidden to us mere surface dwelling mortals.

The task at hand here was to write about using Stone to shape the Public Realm. Easy peasy you say, your preaching to a converted cohort of enthusiastic stone groupies! But it can be easy to get lost in the detail and technicalities and forget how beautiful and interesting rock actually is. Yes, mug-mat stone samples with fossilised tea rings in the middle are very handy, but researching and writing this love-letter to rocks has reminded me of the bigger stone picture and some of the amazing people and their inspiring scientific & creative work that have helped form it.

So fast-forward a few epochs to 1815, aka now if your thinking in geological time. William ‘Strata’ Smith has just published the world’s first comprehensive geologiocal map of a country (England, Wales and nearly all of Scotland]. He wasnt rich, posh or well-connected and his social status barred him from the Geological Society. He was obsessed with mapping rocks though and eventually managed to bankrupt himself in creating something truly wonderful.

Helen Gordon in her brilliant book, Notes from Deep Time: A Journey through our Past & Future Worlds, picks up the story;
“Today, one of the original copies hangs in the entrance hall of the Geological Society’s headquarters in Piccadilly. When you pull back the blue velvet curtain protecting it from the light, one of first things that strikes you is its beauty. The UK is furrowed by a series of curving lines running downwards right to left to reach a point around Taunton in Somerset. The country is a marbled mass of forest green, caramel brown, bubblegum pink, rich purple and pale lavender. Looking at Smith’s map, you can tell at a glance that the country is older in the west and younger in the east; that, roughly speaking, if you begin in the south-east and travel north-west up to the Highlands of Scotland, you travel back in time – from the newest formations of East Anglia to the ancient metamorphic rocks of the Highlands. The colours Smith chose are, more or less, those still employed by all stratigraphers today.”

Talking of epic stone explorers, the Archdrude Julian Cope, went on a pre-millenial eight-year odyssey in search of megalithic Britain. His epic tome to our ancient stone sites, the Modern Antiqaurian was published in 1998. It shines a light in to our shadowy past as modern people hoodwinked into believing our history began with the Roman conquest. “It is deeply impressive….Ancient History: the New Rock’n’ Roll.” The Times

The Stone_Club.rocks was founded by artists Lally MacBeth & Matthew Shaw as a place for stone enthusiasts to congregate, muse and stomp to stones. For £7 you can become an esteemed member with a badge, welcome letter and all important Club Membership Card! It also celebrates stone inspired events, books, films and records and links to Julian’s collaborative on-line guide to ancient sites, The Modern Antiquarian. Remember, the third rule of Stone Club is pack a Snack & a Mac.

Which takes us to everyone’s favourite psychic amplifier, spiritual battery, alien landing site & ancient clock ..
stone rocks.

“All these claims and counterclaims for Stonehenge share a common ground. They assume that the desire to drag stones the size of estate cars miles across the rubble of England must have been driven by meaning. They suppose that if we search hard enough the truth will be revealed. But meaning isn’t everything, isn’t even, maybe, the most important thing. There are other more ravenous drives. Awe. Terror. Beauty. Stones that swoon and sing and dance and weep.”

Matt Osman
Matt Osman is the author of ‘England on Fire – A visual journey through Albion’s Psychic Landscape’ along with genius researcher & image curator Stephen Ellcock. Stone cold fact – Matt is an author, the bassist in Suede and Richard Osman’s brother, of The Thursday Murder Club and Pointless fame!

Robert Macfarlane is author of the foreward to Thames & Hudson’s William Smith Strata book, as well as many others fascinated by the connections between words and the land. Dappy Stones, Eoliths, Hagstones, and Hoarhusks, are powerful rock place-words hoarded in his book Landmarks, that describe the landscape and also help us to truly know it and to love it. If we lose this rich vernacular lexis and we cannot name things, then in some sense we can no longer see them.

Nick Hayes reminds us in his Book of Trespass that there are other reasons why we can no longer see or set-foot on vast swathes of our country. The Law of Trespass excludes us from 92% of the land and 97% of its waterways. There are stone walls that divide us and reveal a long story of enclosure, exploitation and dispossession of public rights and land. Once the Stone Realm was all public and now it is at 8% and ever dwindling. Robert and Nick are both on the parliament of Owls, as passionate supporters and advisers for the RIGHT_to_ROAM movement and their campaigns.

We are quickly running out of space, so here are a few other relevant amazing on-line resources and inspirations that are worth a nosey:-
Caught_by_the_River.net – conceived as an online meeting place for pursuits of a distinctly non-digital variety, walking, fishing, looking, thinking, birdsong and beer, adventure and poetry; stepping out of daily routines to re-engage with nature.

Ploterre.com is the alias of Rebecca Kaye. Based in Edinburgh and with a background in both mathematics and design, she combines her experience alongside her passion for the natural world to create artwork that unearths insights from data.

Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones. A beautiful book by Hettie Judah, a collection of essays inspired by sixty different stones that have influenced our shared earth history. From the Taiwanese national treasure known as the Meat-Shaped Stone to Malta’s prehistoric “fat lady” temples carved in globigerina limestone to the amethyst crystals still believed to have healing powers.

Remember fellow time-travellers…
Stone Rocks.