The master builders of the British countryside

From forest skyscrapers to labyrinthine tunnels and daring underwater bubble rooms, many native creatures engage in precision architecture.

- John Lewis-Stempel

MOST birds do it, bees certainly do it, yet even the most educated flea doesn’t do it. What’s that? Well, design and build their own des-res. As with humans, an animal’s home is its castle, a place of shelter and security in which to live and raise the brood. If a beast’s, bird’s or bug’s abode is primarily a sanctuary for survival of the species, the scale and complexity of animal architecture must make even Norman Foster and Richard Rogers go jade-eyed.

It is fitting that Britain’s oldest landowner, Brock the badger, excavates its manor home in the very earth of the isles. Badgers, with their short limbs and sharp claws, are born to dig; indeed, the animal’s name is likely derived from the French bêcheur, meaning digger. I once saw a badger mining a new entrance to its family home or sett; dirt flew as the badger bored into the earth, furry limbs working furiously, at the rate of a yard every five minutes. Venerable badgers sometimes have their hind claws almost completely worn away from constant use.

Brock’s setts are maintained and enlarged over many years, handed down through the generations of Meles meles. An old, established sett can contain more than 300 yards of tunnels, on two or more levels, with a dozen doorways to the outside. This is preferably a quiet woodland slope. A badger sett in use will often have a tell-tale spoil heap from the latest round of DIY. Or a bundle of used bedding outside the entrance. Or new bedding of bracken and grass awaiting. Badgers like a tidy house.