There is a dry stone wall between the orchard and the top field. There has been a gap in it for a while – where we didn’t quite join the new dry stone wall to the orchard wall. We have decided to close this gap and make a proper one a little further along the wall. The ground level in the top field and the orchard is slightly different, so there will be a step down into the orchard. Fortunately, we had a piece of ashlar left over from the renovation. No one can remember why it was ordered, but it seems to fit here a treat.
The step is level – honest. We used a spirit level on it. There are a couple of flagstones at the back to increase the width of the step. You can see that we have started to build up the left handside. We have overlapped the wall onto the step to make it all a little more robust.
The left hand side has now been built up. Like the walls themselves, the end leans back as it is a more stable structure.
We used some big stones out of the old barn directly on top of the step.
Both sides of the new opening have been built up. The next job was to make sure that the top of the wall was level – both sides of the opening – before putting the coping stones on.