Stoned and cornered
Drystone walling looks simple at first glance - one stone on top of another without the complication of cement - but creating those iconic structures that shout “Lake District” to many people, can often seem akin to 3D chess.
It’s not just the irregularity of the size of the stones to contend with, there’s also whether you’re building on a steep slope, the quality of the stone (some of it shatters on sight, leaving a pile of rubble), how plentiful the materials are, and whether the Cumbrian heavens are blessing you with a gentle breeze or an icy blast.
When I started volunteering with Friends of the Lake District, I was fulfilling a teenage dream to learn to drystone wall. Every month since then I have driven up to Cumbria as part of a work party rebuilding a long section on their land at Mazonwath.
“Walling is like Marmite,” says Jan Darrall, who leads the team and is also Policy Officer for Friends of the Lake District. “You either love it or hate it.”
Richard working on our corner in the mud and rain
Like the black sticky toast topping, I love walling. I love the musical clunk of the stone when you’ve found one that fits securely on the one below. I love the quiet discipline of facing your work partner and working at the same speed, without obstructing the other one (‘walling them out’). I love feeling strong and the tiredness at the end of the day.
There are the fossils we find when taking down a wall to rebuild it, and the animal remains like shrew skulls acting as a reminder that walls are homes for wildlife. Sometimes we all lift our eyes up to the sky to marvel at a bird of prey. Once a quick-eyed volunteer found an ancient axe head. And sometimes we moan as we cower behind the wall in the rain to eat lunch.
To a lover of the outdoors like myself, who spends too much time at her desk, there can be few greater satisfactions than of knowing that you’ve built a wall that is strong, looks good to the eye and that will be there long after I am gone - bearing my fingerprints.
Drystone walling is often a challenge, but applying those skills and established rules to building a corner at Mazonwath has been, in my case, a real example of Continuing (un)Professional Development (CPuD)
Under fellow volunteer Richard Hall’s patient lead, the two of us worked out angles and slopes, battered by high winds and penetrating rain. It took several attempts until we got the foundation stones in place - both of us and the stones, plastered in mud.
It would have been tempting to give up. But working, failing and finally succeeding in building the base of a feature we know will last, warms the heart as much as the mulled wine the team shared for a ‘late Christmas’.
Maybe the top CPuD lesson from Mazonwath is the satisfaction of having succeeded in ‘fighting my corner’.