Reclaimed stone wall

I have spent the last couple of days building a reclaimed stone wall in front of the retaining wall in the garden.  This is the first set of stone that we have imported to the site.  Much of the existing stone on site is poor and unfortunately the quality of a wall depends on the quality of the stone used to build it.

The stones are “back bedded” meaning that a small amount of sand and cement is used at the back of the stones to hold them in place.  It also is required to attach the front wall to the retaining wall using the stainless steel ties. 

It has taken a couple of days to complete this part of the wall.  The stones come in large bags and need to be “coursed out” – sorted into groups depending on their height.  The stones are sorted into groups of 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9cms.  The larger stones are almost all 15 or 16cms high.  While it takes time to course the stones, it does make building the wall that much quicker – as soon as you know you have enough of one course, you can get on and cement the stones in place.

This is the reclaimed stone wall that has been built in front of the retaining wall in the courtyard garden.

The wall is made of reclaimed stone. We are using two sizes of stones 3 – 3.5 and 6 – 6.5. The larger stones are used as “jumpers” to break up the courses and make it less uniform.

This shows how the reclaimed stone wall has been tied into the retaining block wall. The ties are made of stainless steel.

If it rains over night, the rain may wash some of the cement down the front of the stones. This would cause marks and can be avoided by covering the newly built wall with a large piece of hessian.