Revealed: What drove Charles up the wall in Covid
After he took up gardening the Prince of Wales confessed he talked to plants and trees to make them grow. Now I can reveal he has shown an equally eccentric view of the humble stone wall.
He has hailed them as works of art, although for most farmers they are simply a boundary.
At the launch of this month’s London Craft Week, he singled out dry stone walling rather than leatherwork, handbags, glass engravings or lessons on how to sew face masks.
‘In my view, a dry stone wall is not only something inherently practical that lasts for generations, but also a form of sculpture,’ says Charles. Craft aficionados have joked that this interest was perhaps what sent Charles up the wall as he crusades for traditional crafts. He is believed to be getting ready to campaign for hedgerows, in the West Country which have fallen into disrepair during the pandemic.
Walls have proved controversial for the royal family. In the Crown tV drama, a young Prince Philip is shown building a brick wall at Gordonstoun to get over the death of his sister in a plane crash. However, the school criticised producers for featuring the incident, which they claim never happened.
Charles adds that mastery of the craft of dry stone walling requires ‘a sure eye, artistic instinct and much practice’.
Prince Charles has made plain that he is more than happy to allow others to take the lead when it comes to the practice of stone walling.
‘It’s difficult,’ he acknowledged when invited to lend a hand in completing a wall in the Cotswold town of Northleach. ‘I don’t know what it is but I can never make it fit.’