Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Stalking stone structures



When David and Jane Wilson visited us here in Canada this summer on their whirlwind tour of North American stonework, (funded by a Churchill Memorial trust award ) I got to show them some of the dry stone installations in the Port Hope area.

It was a bit like a treasure hunt, as some of the work I had not seen for several years and several pieces were a bit over grown.



We crept up on the rubble helix looking rather splendid and almost ancient in its isolated pastoral setting.

     

The rising dry stone structure looked to be fully in tact, despite its unusual shape and how it was designed to stay together. The remote placement of this piece in the landscape definitely adds to the mystery of how and why it came to be.  





 





Later we visited the vaulted hut just outside Cobourg, another beautiful setting for such an unusual stone dwelling.




Then on the same property we looked at our terraced gardens created two summers ago. I was glad to see that the many many tons of stone that it took to build didn't cause it to seem over done or too over-burdened with stone. The garden felt airy and yet had a calm energy about it. 




It's all made with newly quarried limestone and the plantings are all very recent, so it will be really interesting to visit here again when everything has matured.




The Salem Creek bridge was a perfect place to rest and take some posed photos. This bridge was not more than a month old when David and Jane got to see it.





Finally, a stop a George and Reggie's for a look at the wall there we've been building as a part of a continuing yearly springtime workshop.