I first picked up a rock during the COVID lockdown in 2020. On my daily walks through London, I would often come across abandoned roadworks; pavements were upturned like archaeological digs, gloves and tools scattered about as though the workers had just gone for lunch. I don’t know why, but one day, on a whim, I bent down and grabbed a granite cobblestone. It was about five inches in length, rough to the touch and worn by the passage of thousands of unknown feet. And so began my collection. 

There are now rocks scattered throughout my home. They are mostly cobblestones and mostly granite, which is coarse and hard-wearing, with the occasional lump of the sandstone or slate often required by historical conservation or council specifications. I only take the discards and offcuts, partly because I don’t want to interfere with anyone’s actual work, but mostly because they are more interesting. And every time I pick one up and take it home, I give it a label, noting the street I found it on and date of acquisition, as if cataloging them for a museum. 

I could give you a half-dozen sentimental stories about why I do this; some waffle about reclaiming the city at a time when it felt closed off to me, or perhaps a comparison with gongshi, the rocks beloved by Chinese aesthetes that were thought to capture the essence of mountains in miniature, like stone bonsai.¹ My parents met through rocks, if that helps: My dad was a civil engineer and my mother working as a volunteer on an archaeological dig in York when the pair first exchanged looks over a pile of debris. But in truth, like most collectors, I simply obey a compulsion. I like rocks; how they look, and how they feel. And when they catch the sunlight in the morning and I stare at one over my cup of coffee I feel a sense of satisfaction and stability. Grounded, maybe, if you’re feeling cute. 

It helps, of course, that London was built with rock, and was only recently overlaid with more modern glass and steel. If you had pointed a camera at the city for the past few thousand years and played the footage back as a time-lapse, the rock would flow like water from a spring; bubbling up as forts and towers, frothing into churches and hostelries, demolished at times by fire and bombs but always renewing itself, directly from the earth. Not far from where I live there’s an underground garage where you can see a section of old Roman wall from A.D. 110, unearthed during construction and now occupying bays 52 and 53, between the parked Toyotas and BMWs.