Lundy’s Granite Quarries: Walking Through a Changed Landscape
There have been many attempts to make a profit from Lundy — from golf courses and casinos to amusement parks. Not all came to fruition. However, the Lundy Granite Company did try to develop Lundy’s Granite Quarries.
By 1838, William Hudson Heaven, then owner of the island, was in need of income. He began to explore exporting granite for building works. He leased land on the east side of the island to the Lundy Granite Company. What followed was a five-year period of extraction that altered the landscape significantly.
Walking at Smith’s Point Quarry today, that change is still visible.
The rock feels fractured, broken open. It carries a different energy to other parts of the island — a sense of interruption. And yet, over time, the land has begun to soften again. Grasses settle into the cracks, and plants slowly reclaim the space.
It’s difficult not to think about this history in the context of how we relate to the land. Suzi Gablik writes about this shift in perception — from seeing the earth as something we belong to, to something we use:
“modern individuals do not see the earth as a source of spiritual renewal — they see it as a stockpile of raw materials to be exploited and consumed…”
That idea feels alive here.
There’s an irony in the process too. Much of what was quarried would never have been used. Ternstrom writes about Stanier’s work and notes that only a small percentage of extracted granite was suitable for building. Sometimes it was as little as ten percent. The rest was discarded, left behind as part of the reshaped terrain – now protected by Historic England.
The quarrying left scars on the landscape. Yet, over the past 150 years, the island has responded. The sharpness of the rock extraction, has softened. Green has returned.
VC Quarry, Lundy
Walking between the quarry and the untouched parts of the east side, the contrast becomes clear. On one part, a landscape marked by extraction; on the other, grassy slopes and wildflowers moving freely across the ground.
I found myself wondering what the island would have looked like if the quarrying had never taken place.
In response to this thought, I worked with two photographs that I took. One was of the quarry. The other was of the unworked landscape. I wove them together. Threads crossing between the two, holding both realities at once.
As I wove, the boundary between them began to blur. Grassy banks started to emerge through the fractured ground, wildflowers appearing where rock once dominated.
The weave became a way of imagining — not restoring the land, but holding its past and present together.
Reference:
Gablik, S., (1991). The Re-enchantment of art. Thames and Hudson.
Garodia, R., (2022). Contemporary Weaving in Mixed Media. Rizzoli.
Ternstrom, M., (2008). The Lundy Granite Company: An Industrial Adventure. Westwell Publishing.
