Stone is a fascinating building material, offering strength and durability. Despite the car accident requiring us to rebuild a section of the dry stone wall, we were able to reuse the same stone.
We started the process by sorting the now mound of stone into piles of large and medium stones. The small stones were also segregated in order to be used as hearting. This is to infill gaps and wedges for stones, as well as to packing the core of the wall.
Once the area for rebuilding had been cleared, we began marking out with string lines between the surviving sections. Lining is important to keep the wall straight and prevent unwanted dips or bulges.
Many walls use an A frame timber to aide lining; however, on our project we were able to use the existing wall as a guide.
The largest stones were resat as the footing for the wall providing a supportive base just below ground level.
To see an experienced waller at work is wonderful, making the process look easy. They appear to pick up a stone and directly into place. Of course, this takes years of practice to acquire the vision to select the next requirement from a pile of stone – without hesitation.
Carefully placing the selected stones builds up layers of the wall with the stones laid lengthways. By using the larger stones first, the layer sizes will naturally diminish. The layers are built up on each side of the wall to correspond and cover joints. Some stones will be laid through both sides to bind the sections together.
Irregular stones may require slightly reshaping or removing debris – for which we use a masons hammer. This has a pick edge for pitching and dressing the stone, whilst the hammer side is for setting the stone in position.
When the wall is reaching the required level, a capping top course should be added to protect the wall head. This will aide compacting the wall and can be dry or wet – with the use of mortar. In this project we used lime mortar which will bed the stones and shed away water, preventing damage to the core over time.
The toppers could be stood upright and packed tightly together or as in our case study, the stones have a rounded top.
Following the completion of our walling works, the dog kennels arranged specialist surface and fencing replacement for other aspects caused by the accident.
