CSM EDITORIAL
There is a rhythm to the countryside that city clocks do not measure. It is marked not by the chime of the hour, but by the turn of the season, the rise of the beck, and the quiet, relentless work of those who manage the land.
For generations, that rhythm has included a practice that, to the uninitiated, might appear jarring: the row of moles, hung by their snouts on a barbed wire fence.
Recently, the BBC reported on the furore caused by a photograph taken in the Lake District. A walker, unfamiliar with the custom, shared an image of seven moles strung along a fence line. The reaction was swift, polarised, and ferocious. To the online commentariat, it was ‘grisly’ and ‘horrible’. To those who live and work in the valleys, it was met with a weary sigh: here we go again.
At Country Squire Magazine, we understand the visceral reaction. The mole is a handsome little beast—velvet-black, industrious, with paws that speak to a life of Herculean toil beneath our feet. To see one stilled is not a pleasant sight. But the countryside is not a garden centre; it is a workplace. And before we rush to judgment, we owe it to the people who shape this landscape to understand why that fence is adorned.
As the BBC article rightly notes, the UK is home to an estimated 40 million moles. They are native, they are fascinating, and they are also a significant pest. For the farmer, a field riddled with molehills is not a minor aesthetic inconvenience. It is a hazard. Soil from those hills works its way into silage and hay, ruining the feed and making it unpalatable for livestock. The tunnels disrupt root systems, damage pasture, and can cause thousands of pounds’ worth of wear and tear on agricultural machinery. When a farmer employs a mole catcher, it is not an act of cruelty; it is an act of necessity; a form of wildlife management as old as the drystone walls that crisscross our fells.
The tradition of hanging the moles serves a purpose far beyond the macabre. As mole catcher Mikey Fullerton explains in the article, it is a ledger. It is a transparent transaction between the catcher and the farmer, a physical count that proves the work has been done. It is also, in a world that increasingly seems to disdain expertise, an advertisement of skill. When a neighbouring farmer sees a row of moles on a fence, they know who to call.
It is an honest, if confronting, billboard for a vital service.
Meanwhile Duncan Hutt of the Northumberland Wildlife Trust calls the practice ‘archaic’. With respect, we disagree. We would argue that there is a profound honesty in it. In an age when we are increasingly insulated from the realities of food production and land management, where meat arrives in plastic trays and the concept of pest control is sanitised into a distant abstraction, a row of moles is a dose of much-needed reality.
It is a reminder that the idyllic view from the footpath is not a natural museum piece. It is a managed environment. Those neat, green fields are not the product of chance; they are the product of toil, of generations of knowledge passed from father to son, of difficult decisions made before dawn. The farmer, the shepherd, and the mole catcher are the stewards of this landscape. They are the ones who fix the walls, drain the fields, and, yes, control the vermin so that the rest of us can enjoy a Sunday stroll through a scene of pastoral beauty.
Simon Lucas, the walker who sparked the debate, struck the right note in the end. He said he respects the historical nature of the practice, adding: “Maybe we should just leave people to carry on living the way they have for generations.”
That is the crux of it. The countryside is not merely a backdrop for our leisure; it is a living, breathing community with its own customs, its own necessities, and its own quiet dignity. You do not have to like the sight of moles on a fence. It is allowed to make you pause. But let that pause be one of respect: respect for the skill of the catcher, the necessity for the farmer, and the hard-won order that keeps our rural landscapes from reverting to wilderness.
So the next time you are walking the fells and you come across a string of moles, do not recoil. Take it as a sign that the land is being cared for. Take it as a lesson in country life; the real country life, not the curated, townie version. And then, carry on walking, mindful that you are a visitor to a place that does not make itself. It is made, day by day, by the hands of those who live there.