dry stone walling

With the sheep work up to date the early winter is the time to try to catch up on fencing and a few odd pieces of of stone walling that need to be repaired. I certainly wouldn’t claim to be an expert at dry stone walling, but it is a job which makes me feel in touch with generations past who worked the land at Borough Farm. On one occasion, while widening a gateway, I found a glass bottle of creosote embedded in the earth in the middle of the wall. Creosote was a cure for foot rot in sheep used long before antibiotic treatments were available, and was probably left by a shepherd treating his sheep at that very spot.

Looking at the miles of stone walls that weave through the farm, it’s obvious that my forebears had rather more skill at walling than I do. I also suspect that they had rather more time, indeed it must have been life times of work to create the walls that divide the fields.

Still I finished my little repairs in a couple of days and when I stood back to look at my work, I decided that, provided that you don’t study too hard, they blend in well with those walling experts of long ago.

Building dry stone walls always reminds me of a poem by Pam Ayres

I am a dry stone waller,

I  build dry stone walls all day

Of all appalling callings

Dry stone walling’s worst of all