And now it stands just as impassively while boulderers cling to its overhang, creating routes with incredible names like 'Picnic Sarcastic' and while the regenerated woodland surrounding it has been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest because it's one of the last remaining fragments of the Atlantic Oak Wood habitat – once a vast temperate rainforest that stretched from Scotland to Cornwall.
The installation: Sat 23 September - Sun 29 October 2017
To help tell this story in a playful way, we commissioned artist and film maker John Hamlett to create three short animations that show how the Bowder Stone has witnessed this continuous change. You can see this film at the top of this page.
We opened the door of the climbers' hut, lighting the wood-burning stove and projected Hamlett's animations onto the wall for everyone to see. We also had some foam mats to help make shaking hands beneath the stone more comfortable.
Visitors to the Bowder Stone in the eighteenth century, as today, were fascinated with how it came to be there, and how it came to rest balanced improbably on one edge – did it fall from the crags above? Was it carried by a glacier? The animations play with the idea of some of the stories and responses that grew up around these ideas.
Sparking a conversation
The installation, which tied in to an exhibition at Wordsworth House of many original engravings and paintings of the Bowder Stone over the last 200 years, surprised people and helped spark a conversation about the landscapes in the Lake District, and what the concept of an evolving masterpiece means for the future of this unique and inspirational place.