I took this photo of a moss covered dry stone wall on a saunter in the countryside next to the sea this very morn.
Following on from yesterday's post it is another example of nature encroaching and I think the wall is like a piece of natural art. To think that people long dead created this piece of beauty for a field boundary and to make it stockproof.
I would surmise that the stone wall style is herring bone basket weave familiar to the Cornish miners who mined around here in West Cork in the nineteenth century.
The Fuschia hedges that grows here would be also familiar to them and remind them of back home in Southwest England.
Do you like drystone walls?
I love drystone walls with all my heart. They are a gift to us from our forebears. Intended as practical barriers, they have, with time, taken on a mantle of curious beauty. Nowadays farmers, understandably, take the easy option - bash in fence posts and string barbed wire between them. But way back when men worked patiently and skilfully - ensuring their walls would endure for centuries.
ReplyDeleteThe wall you spotted looks very old.
Your singing from my hymn sheet YP. Absolutely magnificent stone structures made by men who's skills had been passed on from one generation to another.
ReplyDeleteWe like building stone walls and rebuilt some in our property as well as outside. We feel proud of ourselves when people dont realise they have been rebuilt. Prefer working with Sandstone/limestone, rather than the black shale/slate we get here in Carmarthenshire.
ReplyDeleteThats a lovely wall, I do like moss coverings.
Kathy
Hi Kathy. A lot of the vernacular farmhouses here are made with rubble stone and clay or earth packed between the stones. They were rendered in the nineteen thirties and most house are painted. The main materials are sandstone for the dry stone walls. I am glad you like the moss covered wall.
ReplyDeleteThey are a familiar sight here too.
ReplyDeleteOur house was built in the 1860s out of stone and rubble then rendered. We are hoping that it is still quite sound behind the plasterboard and render.
Yes JayCee. The IOM was once part of Ireland. So it must be familiar. I am sure your house will be fine.
ReplyDeleteHave you watched 'Clarkson's Farm'? It's on Prime
ReplyDeleteI know he's not everyone's taste and I absolutely hated him on the car programme and would not watch it but this is about him starting a farm with the help of locals and there was a chap on there doing stone walls.
Give it a try, I'm sure you will like it.
Briony
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I have heard of it but haven't seen it yet Briony. Thanks for the recomendation.
ReplyDeleteF was with Briony, intensely dislikes that Clarkson man and having come from farming background refused to watch him mock what it takes to make farming a business and a lifestyle. Mr B made her watch it, and she has given Clarkson a break. His series has apparently done more to raise general awareness in UK about the difficulties and stresses of farming, than years and years of Country File.
DeleteNo limestone in the East of England so no drystone walling ever took place here. We are the hedgerows area of the country. I like to see drystone walls but they do not form part of our farming profile in the arable lands. Clarkson's Farm that Briony mentions is very popular with farmers and he tells it as it is, in other words, it ain't easy. I follow him on Twitter when he is out on his fields and he is learning how to do things. He is very honest.
ReplyDeleteA lot of the walls aterials here are from glacial ice age deposits Rachel and also when fields have been reseeded and stone picked.
DeleteI do like dry stone walls. There are terraces of them around here. It's a real skill. I tried to rebuild one on a piece of land we have. The stones were there, scattered around but my building left a lot to be desired.
ReplyDeleteHi Linda. You can make raised beds for flowers and vegetables by building drystone walls. I am sure your wall building did it's job.
ReplyDeleteI love them. I see them more on the eastern side of our state where abundant limestone was used to build houses and barns and fences. Our side of the state was so heavily forested that timber was the building material of choice.
ReplyDeleteDrystone walls are great aren't they Debby.
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