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BasketKERDROYA is a major new piece of public art – a 56m diameter classical labyrinth that celebrates the wonders of Cornish stone hedges, at Colliford Lake on Bodmin Moor.
The visitor walks a single, meandering 750m path through stretches of artisan stonework that celebrate distinct hedging styles from across Kernow. At the centre of Kerdroya, a 10m circular space opens out to breath-taking views across the moorland and lake. Here lies a bespoke commissioned sculpture created by Thrussells: ‘The Heart of Kerdroya.’
Kerdroya is the brainchild of artist Will Coleman (previously well-known for his giant puppet The Man Engine). His idea of a Cornish Hedge labyrinth was the successful bid in 2019 for the ‘Diamond Landscapes’ commission celebrating 60 years of the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and 4,000 years of the humble Cornish hedge. To date, the project has reached more than 1000 people through community events, 4000 school pupils through education programmes and more than 500m of Cornish hedges have been built, repaired, or restored.
‘KERDROYA’ a note on the name: turf mazes across Northern Europe were often named along the lines of ‘Troy Town’ (‘Trojaborg’, in Germany and Sweden), presumably because, in popular legend, the walls of the City of Troy were constructed in a confusing and complex way. Welsh hilltop turf mazes were called “Caerdroia”, translated as “City of Troy”, which also has an appropriate alternative translation: “Castle of Turnings”. The Cornish spelling of this word gives us ‘KERDROYA’.
So, why the humble Cornish hedge?
Neither a ‘hedgerow’ nor a ‘dry-stone wall’ the distinctive Cornish hedge is outstanding for its impact, beauty and function. Over 30,000 miles of hedge create the characteristic patterns of the Cornish landscape. They provide vital habitat for flora and fauna and are also claimed to be the oldest surviving human-built structures still in use anywhere in the world.
“Hidden in plain sight, the Cornish hedge is a cultural treasure that unites geology, biodiversity and human endeavour whilst shaping our very landscape itself.”
Claimed to be amongst the oldest human-built structures in the world still in use for their original purpose, some of our Cornish hedges are thought to be more than 4,000 years old. Our labyrinth celebrates the locally distinctive building styles of hedges across the 12 sections of the Cornwall national Landscape. It has transformed an abandoned carpark into a new habitat for local flora and fauna, becoming a vital home for tens of thousands of species of insects and pollinators, as well as hundreds of species of flowering plants. This project prides itself on being a carbon-neutral construction, created using locally available, natural recycled and reused materials to protect our land for the future and preserve the ancient craft of hedging.
Skill: The Next Generation of Hedgers
Safeguarding the future of Cornwall’s hedges
An integral part of Kerdroya is the skills, development and training programme on offer. As well as a colossal piece of land art, Kerdroya is a cultural heritage project and we are working closely with the Guild of Cornish Hedgers, and the more recently formed Cornwall Rural Education and Skills Trust ‘CREST’ to encourage skills development. CREST has recently secured funding from the Cornwall AONB Farming in Protected Landscape Programme (FiPL) to develop more accredited training in Cornish hedging and a comprehensive education and training programme and work at Kerdroya supports these efforts.
Through the Kerdroya project, we’ve been engaging schools and community groups to recruit Hedge Stewards and Hedge Detectives and giving young, unemployed and local people the opportunity to master the art of Cornish hedging, helping to fill the desperate shortage of skilled hedgers. The Kerdroya project has helped to raise awareness of the ancient craft and the challenges it faces – contributing to the recent addition of Cornish Hedging to the Heritage Crafts Red List of Endangered Crafts. This presence on the list helps to bring the plight of these skills to national attention.
What’s the story so far?
Throughout the summer of 2019, local master hedgers worked with community groups and schools to pass on knowledge and skills to create a diverse team of ‘Hedge Stewards’. We repaired 12 sections of Cornish Hedge in 12 areas of Cornwall, ran 12 Hedging Taster Days, delivered 12 Community Lectures and nurtured 360 primary school Hedge Stewards.
In Spring 2020, under the radar, we completed the groundwork and set the grounders so that the footprint of Cornwall is visible from above. We rallied 35 volunteers, 2 horses and 1 sledge to salvage 20 tons of previously drowned granite from the shoreline of the reservoir, as captured by Channel 4’s ‘Devon & Cornwall’.
In 2021 we made a start on the challenging, tightly-curved section at the Labyrinth’s entrance. We’ve trained 4 young Kickstart Apprentices and we ran the first season of the ‘Outdoor University of Cornish Hedging’, delivering 167 days of training for 54 participants.
We delivered 3 more Community Lectures, provided free transport to take 26 families on free story telling walks and hosted 10 primary school visits to the site, where 433 primary school children created and buried 10 Cultural Treasure time capsules. We even found time to talk to The Guardian about the project, you can read the Kerdroya feature here.
Over the summer of 2022 we hosted training days for almost 40 young construction students, provided training for 16 passionate volunteers from Cornish organisations who’ll be taking their new-found knowledge back to their own sites and hosted preview events for some of our Hedge Pledge supporters. We secured additional funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and appointed a contractor to begin work on the main construction phase in Spring 2023.
Work began on site in May 2023 and slowly but surely Kerdroya came into existence; there are now 445m of full-height Cornish Hedges across the ‘land’ area of the map of Cornwall and around the perimeter of the labyrinth. However, there are 355m of earth-bund (across the ‘sea’ area of the map of Cornwall) that remain, as yet, unhedged. For the next phase we now need to raise more money to stone hedge these earth bunds and to safeguard the integrity of the pathway. We also wish to build a ‘viewing mound’ directly to the South of the labyrinth.
Testimonials
“The Kerdroya project is an inspired piece of conservation that combines art, craft and the natural world – as the Cornish hedges themselves do. They are one of Cornwall’s great unsung wonders, and they are in need of attention. After a day jigsawing stones out on the cliff with a master hedger, I’m going home to try and repair my own.”
-Philip Marsden, Author
“Just to say how much our pupils have enjoyed working on this amazing Cornish hedge project. Thank you very much – events like this add real diversity and value to our curriculum!”
-Ms Talbot, Grade-Ruan School