Rebuilding a dry stone wall at Fawler
Twelve walling novices worked with trainer James Bent to rebuild a section of wall.
The wall at Fawler is a partly a retaining wall for the garden of Claypit Cottage and also a wall to keep stock in the neighbouring field.
Pamela Lanigan invited the Wychwood Project to rebuild the wall as it would have been too big a job for her to undertake herself. But as she paid for the stone it provided an excellent venue to run courses as the volunteers can work safely away from the road but still in a location that can be viewed by passers by.
Friday 9 May 2008 - preparing the site
The Cotswold wardens demolished an 8 metre section of wall and the perished stone and a surprising amount of earth was removed from the site. Five tons of new stone were delivered and the site was all set up and ready to go for the course the next day.
10/11 May 2008 - first course
Twelve walling novices came along to work with trainer James Bent on what turned out to be the hottest weekend of the year. Despite the heat they made a great impression on the task of rebuilding the wall. They put in large foundation stones and carefully packed smaller stones and ‘middle fillings’ behind the walling stones, into the bank, to carry out the function of the retaining wall. As the stone courses (never call them rows or layers!) went up it became a free standing wall so the trainee wallers could work on both sides. Up to that point everyone had to be very co-operative as it was a bit crowded just working on the outside face.
By the end of the weekend everyone had learnt how to use a walling hammer to trim their stones and improve the faces of the stones if necessary together with the key concepts of placing the stones to ensure maximum stability of the wall.
15/16 May was cancelled due to torrential rain and rearranged to 12/13 June
7/8 June - second course
The course on the 7/8 June went ahead without a hitch and another 12 people got stuck in to the intricacies of courses, middle fillings and galf stones and the perils of trace walling. This group then had the pleasure of finishing off the first 10 metre section, lining up like a supermarket queue to put the toppers on. This is always the great bit of walling when you can stand back and see a job completed. James always says that good toppers can make poor walling look better but that poor toppers can make a good wall look bad. Our impression of the day was that good toppers were making a good wall look even better but we probably had rose tinted (and exhausted) specs on.
Again we were very grateful to a group of Cotswold wardens who came along to demolish the next 10 metre section of wall and clear away the rubble so that the next course could get stuck into wall building fairly quickly.
12/13 June - third course
The third course met with nine people, but unfortunately without three people who were unable to make the rearranged date. They were soon hard at it putting in solid foundation stones that are the key to a successful wall. They were definitely the least lucky group with the weather as rain stopped play on a couple of occasions on the first day.
However, plentiful cups of tea and cake kept spirits up and the wall rose slowly upwards. Luckily the second day was much warmer and good progress was made so that it looked as if finishing the wall within the proposed time scale was becoming a real possibility.
Finishing off
It took another three days of work by people interested in setting up a dry stone walling group to complete the wall. Different combinations of eight people met on two Tuesdays and one Sunday and we are indebted to their efforts in getting the wall finished so quickly. Such was the determination to complete the wall that Judith and Martin and I carried on until 7pm on the final Sunday and were kindly rewarded by Pamela with a celebratory glass of bubbly in the garden as we admired our handiwork.
Considering that forty five people had a hand in building the wall it looks pretty good. It gave people the opportunity to sample the art of dry stone walling and to find out if they would like to do more, or if they would be better off getting a builder in to do the job. Some went off to put their new found skills to good use to build their own walls.
Eric kindly sent us his photos of his own wall that he built following what he learnt on the first course. (Eric’s wall photo - right).
One of the delights of the rebuilding of this wall is the number of people who have had the chance to take part; we even had one of Pamelas’s visitors joining in and the son of the owner of the adjoining field also came over and helped to finish the wall on the final Sunday. A truly inclusive effort from everyone.
Tidying up
Two young volunteers from the Wychwood v project, Amy and Jonathan, worked with Tony Hillman and I to clear the field making sure that there was no trace left of the forty five people and several tonnes of stone and rubble that had passed through over the previous couple of months
Thank you
Thanks to everyone who took part so willingly and cheerfully; thanks to James for his excellent training again; the Cotswold wardens for their demolition efforts and to Ronald Stewart-Brown for letting us make a terrible mess in his field for two months.
Thanks also to Pamela for giving us the opportunity to rebuild a wall in such a perfect location with kitchen, plentiful supplies of tea and coffee and attached loo, a real treat for many a waller used to working in the middle of nowhere.
On top of the fabulous view we had the company of buzzards, garden birds, cat, dog, toads in the stone piles and even a red kite swooped down to inspect our work on the final day. It was a beautiful site to work at.
Future work
If you would like to try your hand at dry stone walling please contact the Wychwood Project office on 01993 814143 or email jane.bowley@oxfordshire.gov.uk. There will not be any more courses arranged in 2008 but we hope to run more in 2009. You can also contact the following organisations for more general information about dry stone walling and to see if they are running any courses locally.
There are plans in preparation to rebuild a local wall specifically with young people through the Wychwood v project in 2009 so if you are aged 16-25 and interested in trying your hand at dry stone walling keep an eye on the website or email Wychwood.v@oxfordshire.gov.uk.
