Beyond the Fell Wall

by Richard Skelton, Michael Kirkman (Illustrator)

Richard Skelton has spent nearly half a decade living in a small valley, high in the Furness hills of Cumbria, in northern England. When not writing or composing music, most of his days are spent beating the valley’s bounds, exploring its network of paths, streams and walls.

Beyond the Fell Wall is a distillation of his thoughts and observations on this particular patch of land. It is a poetic enquiry into the inanimate life of a landscape – its unheard melodies and unseen movements. It considers both vast geological epochs and brief moments of intimacy, and in turn it asks us to consider sentience in all things – animal, vegetable and mineral. At its heart is the fell wall itself - a vast, serpentine entity. A vessel for the lives, voices and myths of the landscape. The dark heart about which all of life and death revolves.

Genres: Nature, Nonfiction, Poetry, Natural History, Memoir

96 pages, Paperback

First published November 5, 2015

About the author

Richard Skelton is a British musician. Following the death of his wife Louise in 2004, he began to make music as a way of coming to terms with the tragedy.

His music, which uses a number of instruments – principally guitar and violin, has been compared with that of Arvo Pärt among others. His recordings explicitly reference places of emotional resonance, specifically the West Pennine Moors, and the area around the sparsely populated parish of Anglezarke.

Reviews

[Geticus Polus · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been been telling people about Richard Skelton and Corbel Stone Press for five years now. And if somehow I will manage to live another five years (chances are paper thin) I will keep telling people: "Please do yourself a favour and go buy a book by Richard Skelton. His works and his books are the antitode to Everything." Everything as antonym to the Nothingness. I had a chance to work with Richard on Dreams of Ourselves, the Pessoa homage I have edited and designed. Those were the good times, innit? So, you like Machen? Then go buy a Corbel Stone Press book. You like Blackwood, you say? Richard Skelton is for you. Oh, you are into Ligotti too? Swell, then check Beyond the Fell Wall. You don't care for any of the luminaries mentioned above? What about a certain literature of quiet despair, of painful melancholy and of an ethereal, occult naturalism? You are in the right place. No sense in trying to write a proper (?) review of this book. If you are world-weary, if you are bored with your cynicism, if your atheism is suddenly lacking in vitality (oh gosh, poor you), if you know there are some things above and below us then give this wonderful human being a chance. Only a few books are perfect. Beyond the Fell Wall is one of them.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

The musician, Richard Skelton has lived high in the hills of Cumbria for a number of years. A lot of his time is spent composing music, but when he isn’t, he heads out on foot to explore the fields, walk the footpaths and immerse himself in the landscape of the high fell. From those explorations comes this book. It takes in the vastness of geological time, the detail he studies the living plants that a wall gives life to, the apparitions of the past glimpsed in the present and the reassurance that a dry stone wall brings as an edge to a wilder place..

The wall sings, not just the songs of the living, but the unheard melodies of the dead

Skelton is deeply connected with the land around him, and this is what makes this quite a special book. He draws on poetry, prose and quotes to paint a vivid picture of the place that he loves. He is not afraid to use the space of the page to create artwork from words using the names of fields or the delights that you can find in the language of the land. This is the first of his that I have read, though I have a copy of Landings by him after being recommended it by another reader, which is going to be bumped up the to read list.

Enter into the landscape. Repeatedly. And in so doing it enters into you

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quotable:

Lest we forget, the wall is also a cage in the wood. A sapling must wait until an old tree dies and falls, leaving a portion of sky empty for it to occupy. If only the wood could grow outwards, beyond the wall’s confines, expanding its horizons and reclaiming the fell side that was once its unbridled domain.

The first wall-builders were the rivers. Great spills of rock. Heaved into place by the waters’ many hands. Dressed with infinite care and subtlety. Mortared with silt, grit, alluvium. Coped with foam. Even the brooks, streams, rivulets – even the merest rill – could mend a line.
But restless, too. Never stationary. Stones dislodged. Knocked down. Tumbled. Endlessly reworked, transposed, uplifted. A glistening chain. The land, back then, more liquid than solid. And rivers were its architects.

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short, charming (and beautifully made) book presents a loosely related series of poetic reflections on landscapes of kinds common in Cumbria and the northern Pennines. It provides thoughtful reading for anyone who is willing to walk in those landscapes with an eye for detail, and for connections between geology, geomorphology, natural, social and personal history, and much else.

In particular, Skelton (who is a musician and artist as well as an able writer) finds parallels in the processes of building dry stone walls and of writing (like Robert MacFarlane, he is familiar with many types of vocabulary and other elements of language - and provides a useful glossary), between the decay and rejuvenation or rebirth of landscapes, the older buildings within them and of living creatures (including himself), and between the external landscape in which he lives and the internal landscape of his own life and thought. He notes the way dry stone walls become part of the landscape, interacting with the weather and the living world, and how they variously separate and enclose disparate elements of those things, perhaps in different ways at different times. There is a lot more.

The book is strikingly illustrated by Michael Kirkman. It is a volume to return to, like the hills and valleys it considers, in the expectation of finding something fresh each time.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

In passing, a wall is just a wall. Richard Skelton shows us this only a glimpse of the full truth. Beyond the Fell Wall forces us to stand still and observe, be present, and reflect. In a world that moves faster than are brains can process, this work comes as a hopefull sliver of light.
If I reflect on my reading experience I get the feeling I didn't extract everything I can from this book. I feel like this is a book I might grab to re-read when I am in a different fase of my life. But for now It reminded me to stop and smell the roses. I am building up my dreams, and oh how easy it is to forget that you love the process, forget how you enjoy the details ever so small. For that, I am thankfull.

[Evie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I miss the Lake District so much. I can't go there, so I read about it.

The legacy of ice is everywhere. A kind of savage remembering. This very valley is an index of its last movements - each spur and extremity a catalogue of resistance. I walk down a steep, boulder-strewn declivity towards the basin of a small hollow: a walled enclosure with views only of sky. There is release in such confinement. I feel unmoored from the greater landscape. And I drift...

[Matthew Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely beautiful. Haunting, aching, words that take you somewhere beyond language somehow. Simple but incredibly rich.

[Pers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating.