When we build

Photograph by Matilda Angus

“When we build let us think we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such work that our descendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone upon stone, that a time is to come when these stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, "See! This our fathers did for us."

~ John Ruskin

~ v  ~

“Do all your work as though you had a thousand years to live, and as you would if you knew you must die tomorrow.”

~ Mother Ann Lee, founder of the Shaker movement

Our house was built in 1910. Which leads to a number of interesting experiences. People in their fifties who grew up in the surrounding area would ask us, “Can we come and look at the old house again, please?” And when they come, they walk from room to room, eyes tear-filled as childhood memories flood back. “As children we used to sleep in this room when we all came down from the other farm to shear the sheep”; “The pantry looks exactly as I remember it!”

How many feet have walked across these wooden floors? Who visited under the beautiful pressed ceiling in the living room? Who painted over the wallpaper in the middle bedroom and added the small extension to the kitchen? It is becoming more difficult by the day to find answers to these questions, because those who know and can walk you that far back are becoming very rare.

You know one morning that you are now part of that history and of the group of people who lived on Barrowfield when you scratch the date into the moist concrete of the new slab that you poured for the pressure pump. For a moment you thought of writing the shorthand version 2/10/’14, but then you realise that in years to come and with the background of the old house it can also be read as 2/10/1914. Thus, the inscription now reads 2/10/2014.

The admiration that you have for the craftsmanship of a bygone era grows when you are busy converting the old wool shed into a pottery studio for Matilda. On breaking through the almost 1 m thick stone wall in order to put in a new door, stones of immense size and weight have to be removed. An angle grinder with a diamond tip blade is used to smooth over some of the protruding and uneven edges. How did they manage to lift those huge stones into place? How long it must have taken them dressing those building blocks into the solid and even material it proved to be. Without electricity, power tools or cutting blades. 

It saddens me when so much of the craftsmanship that I witness nowadays are not worthy of that description, but merely a means to earn money as quick and as cheap as possible. It saddens me when I realise that our life style and what we value are to a very large degree the origin of such a lack of craftsmanship. It saddens me when it seems as if the single most important issue in career choices being made is the size of the income such a career will generate. 

However, I am also encouraged by the stirrings to be noticed of a renewed interest in old crafts and the products of years gone by. I am excited to discover that there is a growing number of young people who are returning to the values and methods craftsmen used years, even centuries ago, and applying that in innovative and creative ways.

In the meantime, here at Barrowfield, we are living in our house that is more than a century old. We feel secure, enriched, deeply privileged. Most probably because we are constantly saying, "See! This our fathers did for us" without even knowing that we do so. But most of all, we trust that it will influence the way we work and create and what we leave behind.

George