Back in 2003 during the 2 days of the Uxbridge Highland Games that year, we built this demonstration arch from inexpensive random 'rip rap' limestone rock that I had purchased from a local Vicdom gravel pit.
That weekend the completed wall and arch became part of the fencing arrangement that penned show cattle and livestock at the Highland event.
I remember just before the games ended, a friend offered to pay for all the stone material to be dumped at his property where he was restoring an old presbyterian church. Being able to do anything with the stone was a huge relief for me because I had nowhere to take the 23 tons after the event was over.
Later the next year after attempting to build a wall and arch ruins with the stones he had bought at the games, that same friend called me up and asked if I could come and build it for him.
It was a challenge to build a much more permanent arch than the demonstration one we had quickly constructed the year before, while only using the same very irregular random stone.
I got a text last Thursday form some recent clients of mine who happened to be driving through Sonya, Ontario and saw the arch that I built there at beside the old church back in 2004.
They sent this pic and wrote "Is this your work?" I was pleased that they guessed it was mine and relieved to see how charming it still looked beside the old church and that after 14 years none of it looks to have crumbled or slumped.
