Stone Walls
An enduring feature of the English landscape, dry stone walls are common field boundaries across the rocky upland regions – the Lake District, the Pennines, the south-west and the north-east. People have been building these walls for more than 2,000 years, yet most of those we see today are medieval in origin. They were built to enclose common land, once shared by a whole village, for sheep and cattle farming.
It takes great skill to build a dry stone wall, for it is held up not by mortar but by the weight of each stone, carefully placed to fit like a piece in a jigsaw. The largest stones are at the base, and the wall gradually narrows towards the top, where there is a row of upright capstones. Building is hard work, for a tonne of rock must be carried for each metre of wall. Yet the effort is well worth it because a dry stone wall, unlike a hedgerow or wire fence, lasts for centuries with little maintenance. Dry stone walls also give beauty and character to our countryside, while preventing soil erosion and providing habitats for small mammals, birds, reptiles and insects.
