Standing Stones Song
When I completed my MA in Fine Art in 2024, one unexpected gift that came from my final project was a piece of music created for me by Jane Harris. it was inspired by creative practice around the Standing Stones. The song added music and lyrics to the images, bringing another dimension to my work. It turned something visual into something you could hear and feel.
My Fine Art practice is rooted in creating connections with landscape. Sometimes this happens through walking, photography, drawing, storytelling or written reflection. Often it involves paying attention to the senses and encouraging others to experience a place more deeply. Music adds another dimension entirely. It allows a landscape to be interpreted through sound as well as sight.
Two years later, on Lundy, I found myself talking with Jane again when she came to stay on the island. During her visit, her Songways singing group sang Standing Stones for me outside Old House South. Hearing the song performed on Lundy, surrounded by the landscape that inspires so much of my work, felt rather special.
The idea
During our conversations, I mentioned that I would love to hear a song written about Lundy’s quarries. The quarries have long fascinated me, particularly the deepest quarry, my favourite because of its scale, atmosphere and the markings that remain on the quarry walls. I wanted something that might incorporate the story and sound of quarry life.
A few days later, Jane told me she had started thinking about the Stonechat, a bird often found amongst the quarry landscape. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed the perfect choice. The call of a Stonechat is often described as sounding like two stones being struck together. Suddenly there was a character and a voice through which the story of the quarries could be told.
The Research
At around the same time, I handed Jane a copy of The Lundy Granite Company, a fascinating account of Lundy’s short-lived granite industry. The stories within the book provided further inspiration, and over the following days the song began to take shape.
The Music
One evening in the Tavern, I heard Jane playing the melody on her violin. It was exciting to hear the first hints of what the finished piece might become. As she had done with Standing Stones, Jane worked closely with fellow musician Elspeth Hannen. Together they developed the lyrics, melody and arrangement, gradually refining the song into its final form.
The Story
The quarries are places full of stories. There is the history of the granite operation itself, but there is also what has happened since. Nature has quietly reclaimed these industrial spaces. The wind moves through the quarry walls, plants have established themselves amongst the stone, and wildlife now inhabits places once dominated by industry. In many ways, the quarries have re-wilded themselves.
When Jane and Elspeth felt the song was ready, they offered to perform it in the quarries. The quarry has featured in several of my creative projects, and I often visit. It was also a location I was keen to see included in Tiny Islands (Series 2, Episode 3), where some wonderful drone footage captures its scale and beauty.
The Performance
So, on the day Jane and Elspeth were due to leave Lundy, we walked to the Quarries, and they sang Stonechat amongst the granite walls.
It was one of those moments when an idea becomes real.
The sound filled the quarry and echoed around the stone. The landscape itself seemed to become part of the performance. It was windy, of course—this is Lundy, after all—so after recording in the quarry, they moved to St Helen’s Church to capture a less windy version of the song. I tried to combine audio from both locations: the performance in the quarry itself and a cleaner indoor recording. My video-editing skills are developing rather slowly, the film is no where near perfect but it hopefully tells the story.
The song is told through the voice of the Stonechat, who becomes the storyteller of Lundy’s granite quarries and the people who once worked there. What began as a passing conversation grew into a creative collaboration that has brought a new interpretation to a landscape I know and love.
I have played Standing Stones during a Midsummer visit to the Stones on a participatory walk, where the song added another layer of meaning to the experience of Place. I look forward to doing the same with Stonechat, sharing it during guided walks, workshops and future visits to the quarries. It feels like a fitting way to help people engage with the stories, history and atmosphere of these remarkable spaces.
Places often inspire drawings, photographs and stories. For me, the quarries have now inspired music as well. Hearing Stonechat performed within the Quarry walls was a reminder that landscapes can be experienced in many different ways, and that creative collaborations often take us somewhere we could never have reached alone.
Although I may have provided the initial spark of inspiration, Jane Harris and Elspeth Hannen created Stonechat. Their ability to turn an idea into music is something I greatly admire.
My thanks also go to Ben Hannen and Martin Harris who helped capture video footage, whilst i was memorised listening to the song. My thanks to regular visitor Beth Breeze, whose video-editing knowledge got me through a particularly tricky patch—and who was rewarded, naturally, with a plate of Marisco Tavern cheesy chips. Also to another Lundy visitor and fabulous video editor Howard Thompson, who dug me out of a hole, when I messaged him late one night.
Also, thank you to my parents, who unwittingly gave me the tenacity to keep trying to get better at something, through sheer effort, determination and patience.
If you would like to hear Jane’s violin version of Stonechat, you can listen to it below; it is beautiful
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