Beacon Fell Cairns

Beacon Fell Cairns, originally uploaded by e s c h e r.

This a film of the two cairns I made at Beacon Fell Country Park near Preston in Lancashire, the second was remade from the remains of the first.

Editing this footage brought back memories. I remember it was lightly snowing that day when I finished the acorn cairn. It took two days to build as I had to spend hours carrying the stone from a dilapidated wall. I remember how it was extremely precarious and sat on the soft forest floor of compacted needles I could move the whole thing in unison to and fro with very little effort. It was in perfect equilibrium but I knew it wouldn't last long. The stone was very uneven which meant it was quite difficult to get it to balance with its overhanging shape.

Oh and the other thing I remembered was to be careful of walking into trees while filming and walking in a circle or else you look like an idiot with a red lump on your forehead.

When I returned a few weeks later to see if it was still there (no not the lump on my forehead) I wasn't surprised to find that it had toppled. Whether it's demise was due to an earthquake, human assistance or depression and loneliness I will never know. And I don't know how long it had remained standing either.

But still even though it had collapsed the hard work of carrying the stone was done so I needed to make something a little more gravity/child/passer-by-who-gives-it-a-push resistant.

I drew out the circle for the base of the pyramid and completed the second cairn in a day. I was amazed when I finished as I had judged the size of the base perfectly (complete fluke) that meant that I used up all the rock from the first cairn and needed no more to complete it. I haven't been back to see it since but I suspect it has gone the way of its predecessor.

The original still shots are here:- Acorn cairn, Pyramid Cairn.