THE CORNISH HEDGE - AN KE KERNEWEK

Next time, I cycle in. I whirl through a labyrinth of narrow lanes lined with Cornish hedges. They are, I’m thinking, the most beautiful things in England at this moment in May. I freewheel past brocades of red campion and white garlic and blue-bell, past sprays of lime-green fiddleheads, and notice from the corner of my eye the way the little round leaves and butterscotch spires of navelwort come and go as I move in and out of the shade. It’s a real enough prospect, but a dream, too. This is the romantic vision of old England, a rural paradise where humans and nature lived in harmony, where plants were in their right place, at the right time.

Yet these aren’t hedges in the sense that’s understood in the rest of England. They’re not topped by rows of blowsy hawthorn or studded with timber oaks. You’d have no luck trying to count the shrubs in a thirty-yard stretch to measure how old it is in centuries. (There aren’t any.) The Cornish hedge is an artificial bank, a vertical rock garden, knitted together from slates and granite chunks and slabs of turf. Inside farmland the hedges are field boundaries, but along these lanes they exist to stop the fields from falling into the road. They’re artefacts, yet somehow seem to have conjured together all the brimming wildness of woodland clearing and stream edge and cliff-top in one place.

Cycling past them is too broad a take. You catch the blocks of colour, the alternations of shade, little spikes of vivid, odd detail. But not the minute particulars of why such pieces of functional engineering should have a convincing patina of naturalness. The next day I walk in, and peer closer.

Bluebells, shield-ferns, lady-ferns, wood sorrel – plants I know from the deep shade of ancient woods in the south-east, plants which suggest they need deep leaf-litter too. But here they’re out in the sun, with their roots wedged between stones. I draw my finger through one of the clefts, thinking of the niches on that little weevil, symbiophilus. I pull out a crumbling wad of dead moss, a curled-up millipede, flecks of stone and a smidgeon of mould. What on earth are the plants living on?

Extracted from ‘Fencing Paradise’ by Richard Mabey, with permission of the author ©2005.

Kewar yw rag an dhysquethva noweth gans Kurt Jackson dhe grespoyntya orth an ke Kernow. Keow Kernow a’n Os Brons yw an cotha starnedhow gwres gans mabden bos usyes pubdedh whath yn oll an bys. Ma geseth, me a dyb, dre formya an keow oryon mes, dhe voy wren ny godhvos anedha, dhe voy ny a wra convedhes y vos an fordhow bras may travalya bestas ha losow an gwyls adro an tyreth.

Neb fordh, kow a wra predhya nampyth yn downder an enef, tewl traweythyow ha prederus, pryveth, po kevrynek ynjy, tregva dhe’n losow pystry a’n lyen gweryn ha’n tardh a lowena romansek yth yw an keweth yn gwaynten. Martesen, styryow an re ma a wra tregas yn keow dre wul an castygow a’n haf dewedhes gans fustow a’n jyn enna dhe apperya avel dhystrucsyon moy uthek heb rach.

Gwyryoneth munys y skyans adro dhe gweth yw kens an 19es cansvledhen, moyha a’n poblens a Vreten Vuer o helghyoryon ha cuntelloryon whath ow cruny bos hag ylyow dheworth aga heow. Ytho … dhe’n gweyth brentyn gans Kurt.

Ow cowsel ragof ow honen, me a wra y gara yn fuer drefen an den ma a wra convedhes an bewnans, ha suel voy why a wra meras orth y benturys, dhe voy ynjy yw dyogely a vewnans. Pentyers an lyha a yl y gontrefaytya rag may y gyllaf war’n canfas. Gans Kurt, why a yl y weles had y dastya. Rag henna, me a wra y gomendya dheugh an gweyth marthys ma, drefen yth yw adro dhe geow y’n menyans a’n efanna, yth yw adro dhe’n dermyn ow passya ha’n gwaryvaow pleth yw bewnans y honen yw actys, yn gwyr hag avel metafor.

Tim Smit, 19es mys Est 2005

How appropriate it is that Kurt Jackson’s new exhibition focuses on the Cornish hedge. Cornwall’s Bronze Age field boundaries and hedges are the oldest man-built structures still in every day use anywhere in the world. There is an irony, I suppose, that hedges form boundaries, yet the more we know of them, we realise they are the great highways by which wildlife moves around the country.

Hedges somehow capture something deep in the soul, sometimes dark and brooding, secret, mysterious even, home to the witching plants of folklore and the romantic joy burst that is the hedgerow in spring. Perhaps it is these meanings that reside in hedges that make the late summer thrashings of the tractor flails seem like the most terrible wanton abuse.

A little known fact about hedgerows is that up until the early nineteenth century, the majority of the population of the British Isles were still, in part, hunter gatherers collecting food and remedies from their banks. So … on to Kurt’s magnificent work.

On a personal note, why I like it so much is that the man understands life, and the more you look at his paintings, the more life-affirming they become. Lesser painters can fake it so that you can see it on the canvas. With Kurt, you not only see it, but you feel it. So I commend this wonderful show to you, because not only is it about hedges in the widest sense of the word, it is also about the passing of time and the stages on which life itself is played out, both for real and as a metaphor.

Tim Smit, 19 August 2005