I guess we must be approaching the half-way mark with the dry stone wall in the orchard. Must be time for a photo. Here’s a (slightly messy) panorama of the progress so far.
This is the current extent of the rebuilt dry stone wall in the orchard at the end of day 23.
Well, the weather over the Bank Holiday weekend has been great so far. With any luck we will end up with 3 good days on the trot. Difficult to believe when Friday’s weather was so cold and wet.
With most of the work done inside of the cottages and the builders due to start next week, our attention has turned back to the dry stone wall in the orchard. It is a real pleasure to work outdoors in such fine weather. With two of us working on it together, we have made significant progress in the last couple of days.
The wall at the start of day 23.
End of day 23. The wall closest to us has just foundation stones, the next section is about 50cms high, the next section is complete but without coping stones and the wall furthest away has coping stones.
Another Saturday dry stone walling, but this time it was in the sun! It was a beautiful day here in West Yorkshire, although the wind and the rain did set in later in the afternoon (but we were ready to pack up by then!).
We disassemble the next 3M section of wall and dug the foundations. The photo below show how far we got during the day – probably about 5 courses up. This means that one side of the wall is just above ground level (this side of the camera) while the other is showing a number of courses (the other side of the wall).
Another 3m section dug out and foundation stones laid. I am not too keen on this part of the building process as it always looks a mess at this stage. It does improve as the wall appears from the ground.
We managed to finish off the section of wall that we have been working on in the orchard – all, but the coping stones anyway. The coping stones are the stones that are placed vertically on top of the wall. Main problem is that we seem to be short of coping stones. As soon as we find some (there are plenty around on site, but there are just not where you would expect to find them), it is a 20 min job to finish this section of wall.
Jo helped out on and off over the weekend and it is quicker with two – even if it is for someone else to fill buckets and fill in the centre of the wall with smaller stones (called “hearting”). Even so, this section – which is 16.5m – has taken us 15 working days to complete. There is a lot of work once the wall is stripped down, the foundations dug and then the wall rebuilt. There is still a lot of wall to rebuild.
Still, now that we have an increasing length of wall completed, you get a real feel for what it is going to look like when finished.
Wall just waiting for the coping stones – the last course is on and level. Zep loves to lie in his bed and watch others working!
Ready for the coping stones.
The last row is put on absolutely level just before the coping stones go on. It is absolutely critical that this course is level.
It is difficult to believe but it has been over a month since we have done any dry stone walling. The weather has been a major issue (you can’t find the stones under the snow!) as well as turning our attentions to stripping out the cottages ahead of the building work starting.
Today was a great day weather wise – the temperature hit a positively barmy 13C. Although the wind was still cold, it was great to be working outside and only having to wear a t-shirt. Hopefully, we have many more of these days to come.
We spent most of the day building up the section of wall where we had already sorted out the foundations. Hopefully, tomorrow will be get to the top of the wall ready of the coping stones (which seem in very short supply).
Some of the material that has come out of the cottages during the stripping out will be used in the walls. Either in the foundations of the wall where they are out of sight (always a good place to lose the odd bricks) or in the wall itself (making sure no machined faces are on the outward face).
There were two 70’s type stone fireplaces in both of the cottages and much of this material will end up in the wall. I am spreading it throughout the wall so that it is not too noticeable. However, we got a surprise today when we turned one of the pieces over – it turned out to be part of a gravestone. I have no idea if this is a real gravestone or just a waste piece of stone. Either way, not quite what I was expecting to see a 70’s fireplace made out of!
Well, the weather has improved enough for us to be outdoors. It was hovering just above freezing, but it didn’t notice too much as long as you kept moving!
We are still working on the wall in the orchard and are now using some of the stone that has been removed during the renovation. Since the one side of the wall is higher than the other, the first five courses on the orchard side are actually underground. This means that there is an opportunity to use any old stone in these courses as they won’t be seen. This provides the opportunity to get rid of some of the stone that has been removed while renovating the smaller cottage. This consists of concrete blocks, old bricks and the occasional patio slab. This is quicker to lay as the material is more uniform and has flatter edges. This feels like a bit of a “cheat”, but since the material can’t been seen and it saves the stone for the rest of the wall, I can’t see why not.
We did remove some stone that made up the rather awful 1970’s fireplace in the smaller cottage. This roughly matches some of the stone in the wall, so we have decide to use this. It will be seen, but as long as none of the machined edges face out on the wall, I think they will blend in OK, particularly once they have weathered a bit.
Now we have removed the shed in the corner and some of the undergrowth, people who drive by can see us working on the wall. This has led to numerous cryptic comments in the local pub.
Still working in the orchard. You can just some a couple of pale grey bricks hidden at the bottom of the right hand side of the wall. The first 5 courses on this side are hidden underground since this provides an opportunity to get rid of some of the material that we have removed.
When building a dry stone wall, it is important to stand back and look at the work that has been completed. It is often difficult to see potential issues when you are working right on top of the wall. I have got into the habit of taking photographs at the end of each work day. Often these photographs reveal issues that even standing back cannot reveal.
If you look at the top image, the far left hand edge of the coping stones (the ones on the top of the wall) you can see that the wall trends downwards. This is more obvious if you look at the line of the wall directly underneath the coping stones.
The next image shows that this issue was corrected, but in the next section of the wall, the course of stones just underneath the coping stones now trends upwards. In the bottom image you can see that this issue has been again corrected. With a dry stone wall, it is relatively straightforward to strip off the coping stones and rebuild the wall and replace the coping stones.
So how do these errors occur? Simply put, by not religiously following the line that has been set up. On the other courses in the wall, you can deviate from the line of string knowing that this can be compensated for on subsequent courses. However, on the final course (the one before putting on the coping stones), you have no such leeway and the line of the string must be following very carefully.
More of the same. I started the day with the foundation stones and 3 courses complete. I ended the day by putting the coping stones on this 3 metre section of wall. Jo came and gave me a hand sorting stones, filling buckets with smaller stones and helping with the hearting (filling the centre of the wall with smaller stones that jam the others in position). This made a real difference to the amount that was completed today.
Well, I started on this section of wall on 11th November and have spent 10 working days on it to get to this point. Christmas, bad weather and the flu all contributed to slowing things up. You can start to understand how labour intensive dry stone walling is – particularly compared to putting up a barbed wire fence.
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| Dry stone walling – Day 16 |
It has been wet today. Really wet. However, by the end of the day there is only a couple of courses to go and the coping stones can go on this part of the wall. Once you pass the midpoint on the wall (and install the throughstones), the whole process seems to speed up – not surprising considering the top of the wall is only half the width of the base of the wall.
While it has been relatively warm today, it has been really windy and wet. This has made working outside hard work. The main issue is that the ground surrounding the base of the wall becomes very muddy and slippery – you would not want to slip carrying a heavy stone. I made a “duck board” using some spare wooden decking. This works a treat, although it could do with being a bit longer.
I reckon one more day and we will be ready to put the coping stones on the top of the wall.
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| Day 15 and a “duck board” to combat the mud! |
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