Abbey Farm Big stones

Abbey Farm, Whitby.  Built of rather large blocks of stone and quite different from all the other walls on the farm.

Dismantling it.  Its not a long section.  From the two new fence posts in the middle to the one laid next to the gagte in the distance.

         I   cI I I .

 

Some heavy lifting here.  I spent a fair bit of time  measuring and making sure the ones I was going to use weren't likely to be lifted off again.  These were some of the heaviest stones I've used.  I think Paul, the owner, helped lift one or two.

Chalk Walls & buildings

Well almost!!

There are a number of buildings on the Yorkshire Wolds either partially or completely made from hard chalk.  Not the most obvious of building materials but widely available as the underlying rock is chalk.

The two old lighthouses at Flamborough are built from chalk.

This specimen was spotted in Bempton near Flamborough on the coast.

The chalk doesn't fracture in long lengths sufficient for corners so all of the buildings I've seen all of the openings and gable corners use brick.

And here in one of the villages on Flamborough is a house completely built of chalk!

Irish House/Stonework

 I'd been rebuilding & replacing the partially concrete block and stone wall in front of our house when a local builder asked if I'd built it.  "Could you do house stonework?" he asked.  I told him, probably but I'd never done house walling.  "No problems I'll start you off and you can take as long as want".  (Dunmanus near Goleen, on the Mizzen peninsular, Co Cork) Built 2003.

Most Irish houses since the 1950s were built of two 'skins', of 4" concrete blocks and plastered.  If you wanted stonework then unlike the UK where cut stone was used on the outside skin, in Ireland they were mostly clad in stone, this needed a 1ft of concrete foundation to accommodate the outer stonework.  Many of the garden walls also made of concrete block on one side and stonework on the other:-

The stones for this house were mostly  field stone collected from a newly created farmer's field with the addition of stone from a local quarry.   The depth of stone was normally around 8" to 1' maximum.  The two blanked out windows I added to break up the large expanse of gable end.  To give future owners something to puzzle over, I deliberately put them at the level of the ground floor ceiling level and 2nd ceiling level.  The stone work was cemented, using a 1:4 ratio of sand to cement and the cement was used was mixed with only enough water  so it wouldn't slump when tipped out for use.  This was so no cement leached out when drying and also enabled the joints to be raked out and brushed out using a 1" paintbrush. 

The stone was sandstone.

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BELOW

I built the gate entrance at the same the same time.  The walls were built with a core of 4" concrete blocks and faced with stone on both sides.  I made sure you could see no cement and the photo taken about 10 years later shows ferns/flowers growing out out of the entrance way.   The stone used here was also also a very local sandstone similar to slate. It split easily but couldn't be broken across the grain without a great deal of shattering.

(above)  Calf Island wall in Roaring water bay off Skibberean in Ireland.
No ferry visits this island.  I had to kayak there from Schull.

(above) - The Mourne Wall, 23 miles long.

Built around the watershed of a reservoir in Northern Ireland, between the years 1904 and 1922 to protect the water supply to Belfast, Norther Island.  Built of locally quarried granite.

Trees and Walls

Trees and walls don't generally mix.  Trees close to a wall will normally push the wall over as they grow or get rocked by the wind.  To avoid cutting down trees in or near walls which the owner doesn't want removed there are a couple of methods..  

Here's one method, spotted in the Yorkshire Dales.  In this case the waller has run the wall as close as he needed to the tree and left a gap with properly built wall ends.  I've also seen a wall built around a tree.  Either way it needs to be at least two or three feet away from the base of the tree.  Any gap which stock might escape through can simply stopped up by using a small amount of timber.  

If roots are a problem on their own then it is normal to bridge them with stone to avoid the possibility of the root or new roots lifting any foundation stones.

ber or wire fencing.