In this episode, Katie speaks with Helen Bowkett, a jack-of-all-trades craftswoman, Cornish Hedging Trainer, co-founder of the Cornwall Rural Education and Skills Trust (CREST), and Director of the Landwise Collective CIC.
Helen is a woman of many hats (and muddy boots). With a background spanning traditional craft, coach education, regenerative agriculture, and community project development, Helen brings a rare depth to her work, blending ancient skill with modern ecological thinking. At the heart of it all is a deep reverence for land, people, and place.
In her 50s and loving it, Helen reflects on a life shaped by doing, not just dreaming. From milking cows before school on her family smallholding, to years spent at sea as a gig rower and coach, to training as a boat builder and restoring old cottages with her husband—her story is one of soulful graft, craft, and stewardship.
Helen now stewards 13 acres of land in West Penwith, the most ancient hedging system in Cornwall. Through her teaching at Hillside Farm and the Landwise Collective, she offers training that’s not just about skill but about reconnection. Her approach to hedging is slow, relational, reflective, and rooted in community. It’s about empowering people to become active stewards of their places, to honour craft as a living lineage, and to rewild their hearts while tending the land.
“You don’t need to see the whole path, just the next right thing. Put your hands in the soil, and trust what’s ready to come through you.” - Helen Bowkett
We cover:
What a Cornish hedge really is a stone-faced earth bank with roots in ancient farming, not just a wall or a hedgerow
The cultural, ecological and spiritual weight of the craft, from 3,800-year-old hedges to modern day biodiversity corridors
Why working with stone is an act of meditation, healing and reconnection and how it supports flow, rhythm, and mental well-being
What makes a good hedger (spoiler: it’s more mindset than muscle)
Being a woman in a male-dominated craft and how Helen’s approach invites women to work with their bodies, not against them
The difference between a craft hedge and a field hedge and why her work at Landwise is building something slower, wider, and more regenerative for the future
Hedges as metaphor, for boundaries, belonging, biodiversity, grief, legacy, and hope
If you’ve ever felt the tug of the land, the need to slow down, or the quiet call to do something meaningful in the face of uncertainty, this conversation will move you. Tune in now and meet the woman who’s quietly weaving craft, care, and hope into the Cornish landscape, stone by stone.
More from Helen:
Website: https://crestcornwall.co.uk/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61550482445752
More from Katie:
Instagram: @katietreggiden.1
Website: https://katietreggiden.com/
Blue Health Coaching: https://makingdesigncircular.org/coaching
Nature-inspired poetry: https://brackishbykatietreggiden.substack.com/t/poetry
Resources mentioned:
Active Hope by Joanna Macy (this is an affiliate link)
Theory U by Otto Scharmer (this is an affiliate link)
WWF’s Living Planet Report – referenced for biodiversity loss stats
Check out my full Bookshop.org podcast reading list to find links to all the books mentioned throughout Season 6 of Brackish.
What next?
If all this talk of defiant hope has got you wondering where you can find some, I have something for you. Cultivating Hope is my three-part mini-course and it’s the three steps I move through whenever I start to feel despair tugging at my edges.
You will move out of ‘fight, flight or freeze’ mode and into a calm and connected state, reconnect with nature, and find aligned actions that you can take now to keep you to remind you that you can make a difference.
In the current climate, hope is an act of defiance, and it’s one I hope you’ll take with me.
