Drystone walling and hedgelaying: Ireland & walls

WHAT I DO

I will lay your Hedge, Build or repair your Dry stone walling or plant new hedges.

Hedgelaying, Planting, Drystone Walling, Garden features, House stonework, hedgelaying, teaching, illustrated talks, Training in Hedgelaying, Stonework, Drystone Walling

I live and work in the North York Moors area

I'm a qualified hedgelayer and have laid hedges in Ireland, Holland and in the UK. I'm also a drystone waller and have built houses (and walls), garden features, gate entrances in Ireland, Australia and in England.

I've been told I'm a bit of walling and hedgelaying nerd. But I don't mind it because it's normal. Doesn't everyone stop and take pictures of these when they are on holiday?

Some of the site contains my work along with pictures of hedges, walls and walling features from places I've visited. It should be pretty obvious which is my work.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Ireland & walls

On Sherkin Island, just off the coast of Cork in SW Ireland you can find some of the most unusual dry stone walls anywhere.

The specimen on the left is a 'single' wall and is quite common on the island. These are about 3.5ft high.

I'd been on Sherkin several times and never seen this one, until one day on the ferry to birdwatch on Cape Clear island the weather forced the ferryman to take us via the steep eastern side of the island. My eye attracted to a wall on the distant hillside I decided a closer look was in order.

The dog, by the way, is mine and she's Jilly a border collie X retriever.

And so several weeks passed before I had the opportunity. The wall runs for just a couple of hundred yards along the top of steep cliffs. It was built to keep cattle from straying over the cliffs.

So far as I'm aware these are the only pictures in existence of this rather unusually built wall, which still functions to keep cattle out of harms way.