‘I don’t want to do dry stone walling in this’ I wailed when the drizzle changed to heavier rain as we drove to Rauceby Warren, a L
incs Wildlife Trust reserve near Sleaford. But I was leading this task so had no choice… And by the time we got there the rain had stopped and it stayed dry all day, not raining again until it was just about time to leave!
So working conditions were good – dry and not too hot – as 10 of us
continued the work on the very long wall at this reserve. We were guided by
the Warden, Dave, and by Derek, an experienced dry stone waller who gave
advice and help, enabling us to develop our skills and an ‘eye’ for which
stones were right for the bit we were working on. And who, when we were
convinced we had tried a stone every which way and that it definitely
wouldn’t fit, would just shift it a bit, or turn it a way we thought we’d
tried but perhaps we hadn’t and … it would fit perfectly!
The wall has subsided over the years, the foundations have shifted and stones have been removed, so we had to dig out existing foundations and rebuild them to make them stable again, ready to build up the new wall. We cleared several metres of foundations then set up the ‘A’ shaped marker strings to make sure
we got the line of the wall straight and angled it inwards as we build upwards. We managed to build up a couple of layers of stones on top of the new foundations and a few more layers for the first couple of metres and felt very pleased with the results.And, in one day, Lincoln Conservation Group provided the equivalent of 10
days’ worth of labour!
All being well we will continue building this section when we return in July, and should be able to complete part of it with the final layer, coping stones, ensuring that we have had experience of all the stages of building a dry stone wall.
Thoughts of having a wander round this interesting little reserve at the end of the day were shelved when it started to rain again. Perhaps next time ….
Jude
(More photos on the Picasa website)