It was back at the 2004 Canadian Dry Stone Wall Festival that Norman Haddow and some members of the DSWAC built the gothic arched structure called 'Vestiges' at Hill and Dale B&B in Port Hope Ontario.
This time the international crew of festival wallers included Dan Snow from the States and Dieter Schneider from Switzerland. During the three days of the annual festival we combined our skills to again build something that had never been done before in Canada.
Dan took the instructions quite literally when I explained I wanted this dry stone 'folly' to look like an old ruins. He built his section to include a very realistic looking, tumbled-down area that appeared to have stones missing. It was however quite 'structural' and the gap has never shown any signs of shifting at all.
To this day (seven years later) if I take people to see the ruins and I see their concerned expression when they look at the gaping hole, I find I'm compelled to have to explain that the stones have not fallen out but that it was purposely built that way to look fallen down.
The fox who is a regular to the property and must live nearby has no trouble with the hole idea, or any of the other parts of the ruins for that matter.
I have a series of photos where he can be seen posing in and around and even on top of the folly .
I will post some of these photos tomorrow.
