Craigflower Manor Dry Stone Wall Victoria BC

Don't know what this is, but it's pretty and it's growing on the property, so I'm calling this a Craig flower.

This is part way through day one.

This is all the way 'throughs' - day two

Now were really through. 

Seven students, two instructors, two days, eighteen and a half feet of free standing dry basalt stone wall. Thanks to all the students who did such a great job and to Christopher Barclay and the Highland Games Association who organized this event.

Wallaboration

Day one of the Dry Stone Walling Across Canada weekend workshop at the historic heritage Craigflower Manor estate in Victoria, British Columbia. We will be proving again this weekend that beautiful long-lasting stone walls can successfully be built without using any mortar or manufactured stone products, but not without a good mix of friendly collaboration and cooperation. Stay tuned for tomorrow's post to see if we get to the top ! 

Photoshop Glue

I came across this on Pinterest. I'd like to think it's a photoshopped tongue-in-cheek dig at some of the very probably impossible examples of stone balancing being posted out there. Maybe it isn't. If not then, 'very probably impossible' isn't an oxymoron either. 

A Shore Thing

Sometimes when the wind and surf is just right, and you've got the time and the perfect beach, with just the right shape and size stones, you sense the need to do something wild and daring. At times like this you need to create something that momentarily encompasses the potential and excitement you feel just to be alive. 

Or, of course you could do something that's almost as fulfilling, and go kite surfing.

Batter

Batter Makes Everything Better

Things that Stones Expect You to Know # 10

Stones just wanna have fun !

On the final day of our dry stone wall building demonstration at the Victoria Highland Games last weekend, we let some of the stones play around together in the park for a while (with supervision, of course).

Going for a Wall in the Park.

We went for a simple very traditional style dry stone wall in Topaz Park this time at the Victoria Highland Games. It was built with random shaped basalt material from Squamish B.C. 

There was a section of the 16 foot wall we left unfinished so that people could see a cross section of a wall with the  through stones and the hearting revealed.

Even though we were a bit hard to find we were happy with the lovely site we had to work in this year, tucked under a grove of mature trees, away from most of the main events.  

We had a lot of fun talking to the people who did find us and many of the onlookers who came by learned how a proper dry stone wall is built and why we build walls without mortar. 

Some of the repeat visitors to the games told us they were expecting something more dazzling with arches and loops, more like what we built during the big Victoria Day event last year, and the year before. 

I guess we've become our very own hard act to follow.

Not finished yet!

It's good if you have some longer stones to put 'through-stones' along the wall at about knee height. Yesterday we were through-stoning the demonstration wall. But strangely, were not finished yet!

Jose Janecek takes questions from interested visitors to the Victoria Highland Games about what the three through-stones are for.

While the others pack the inside of the wall, Christopher Barclay is scraping the hearting barrel.

Here are some of the happy wallenteers.

Irony

Can you believe it? We're here at the Highland Games in Victoria this weekend, stacking stones, trying to build a simple demonstration dry stone wall and the bagpipers, ( the bagpipers !)  come over and ask us to keep the noise down ! 

Victorian Arch, Wall, Games and Upcoming Workshop

Yesterday I revisited a Gothic arch and a rather challenging herringbone dry stone wall that my students and I created almost ten years ago at Island Stone Landscape Supplies islandstone.ca/?page_id=53 near Victoria BC. 

My good friends Christopher Barclay and Kevin Maloney were there helping at that workshop. 

Next weekend we will be doing another dry stone workshop at the  Craigflower National Historic Site  We will be leaving a permanent dry stone feature (perhaps and arch) for people to enjoy at that estate. It would be good to see some Victorians sign up and participate in this workshop, and if not, at least try to come out to the Victorian Highland Games walling event happening today and tomorrow at Topaz Park Victoria. You can help put in a stone or two.

Vertically Unchallenged

Photo by K. Gleason

These are BIG stones. They are river rock that comes from a secret place near Grass Valley, California. Many of them are shaped like round cushions and are impossible to shape. My hands and I agreed that this was probably the best way to use them. Even though there was some really heavy lifting here, we had a lot of fun building this way.

The tall Redwoods bookending this semi circle section of wall are about three feet in diameter.

This is an experiment we did last January for a bigger project to be built in California next year.

Things that Stones Expect You to Know # 9

That they don't like Portland cement

Things that Stones Expect You to Know # 8

That we need stone !

In fact, in terms of enhancing our gardens and homes, and as structural elements in the landscape, in parks along trails and in most public places…

 'stone is All we need'.

A drainage Issue solved

We suspected that one of the gaps in the original stone wall which we had chosen to repair at last weekend's workshop had fallen down because the ground water had undermined the foundation. 

We rebuilt that part of the wall with a drain to alleviate the problem. 

Here you can see the wall (and drain with stone lintel) from both sides. 

First - above, on the morning of the second day after there had been many hours of rain, 

Then - below, on the same day at the completion of the dry stone workshop workshop in Mayo County, Ireland

Not So Dry, Dry Stone Walling in County Mayo

The weather turned crazy on Sunday in County Mayo. Wind and rain made walling a bit of a battle. Our boots sank into the boggy soil and it was impossible to keep our feet dry. I don't think I have been that wet for a long time. 

Despite the rain and everyone worked diligently and cheerfully. There was a great sense of accomplishment and camaraderie throughout the entire workshop . The skies cleared by 4pm as we began the big push to finish the three gaps that we had first set about to repair on the Saturday morning. 

I think everyone did very well considering the weather and the fact that the stone selection at each gap had dwindled to nothing.

The Mayo Walling Clinic

At the beginning of the workshop instructors in Ireland are required to read aloud a printed document explaining everything that wallers must know about 'health and safety'. The students must then all sign a document saying they have read the material and understand all the risks involved in taking a dry stone wall workshop. 

After the students have taken all the precautions to safeguard against injury themselves, they are then instructed how to diagnose and properly care for the actual patient - the ailing dry stone wall.

This weekend is a veritable 'hospital' for walls and wallers here at the 'Mayo Clinic'.

Walls of The Greenway

We arrived here yesterday in Mulraney (Mallaranny) County Mayo, Ireland on the invitation of the Mayo County Council to teach a dry stone walling course this weekend. These beautifully built dry stone walls (over 150 years old) were commissioned to by the railroad to be built along long stretches of what has now become a hiking trail called the Greenway. 


There are one or two gaps like this one that Patrick is standing beside which we will be fixing with our 15 students this year. 

The countryside is beautiful, the people warm and friendly, the weather surprisingly mostly dry so far.  

What a treat it is to be here doing the thing I love the most.  

- More updates to follow.

Things that Stones Expect You to Know # 7

That they all have faces, just like we do.

Things that Stones Expect You to Know # 6

That they like to lean on each other

The same way we do.

Things that Stones Expect You to Know # 5

     That they like to be together, 

and will stay together as long as they can.

Things that Stones expect you to Know # 4

That they are heavy and very hard for a good reason.

While it might be tempting to build with a less demanding material - say swedes, for example, which are very plentiful in Britain (including the Lake District) and are much lighter and softer than rocks, we need to understand that they don't make nearly as strong a wall as rocks do, and eventually even swedish walls start to go mushy.

Things that Stones expect you to Know. # 3

That they don't want to have to hurt us

Things that Stones expect you to Know. # 2

That they don't like to be just decoration.

Things that Stones expect you to know. # 1

That they prefer to be called 'stones'.

Mayo on the side.

I'm off on short side trip next weekend. I'm looking forward to helping teach a dry stone walling workshop in Ireland on May 9 and 10   Dry Stone Wall

A Newly Repaired Section of One Hundred and Fifty-Seven Feet of Old Wall

Six of us had a great time rebuilding 157 feet of wall last week.

This added to the 120 feet we repaired last year.

We all enjoyed working together despite the poison ivy and the crazy weather.

Mystery Walls of the East Bay

There are remnants of ancient stone walls all over the East Bay, and no one knows how old they are, who built them, or why. Though people have been pondering the enigma of the Berkeley Mystery Walls for well over a hundred years, no conclusions have been reached, and despite wild speculation, no serious scholarly study has ever been undertaken.


Stretching for over 50 miles, the East Bay "Mystery Walls" are found up and down the hills of the East Bay from Berkeley to San Jose. The stone walls are up to five feet tall in places, and are constructed from boulders of varying sizes, some weighing up to a ton. The walls run in broken sections, anywhere from a few meters to half a mile in length, and are placed in unlikely and inaccessible places. They seem to serve no known purpose. They are not continuous or high enough to act as an enclosure, or measure of defense. They are clearly, visibly, very old. The heavy stones have sunk deep into the ground, and they are overgrown with lichen. After meandering throughout the Oakland hills, they head inland towards Mt. Diablo where they lead to mysterious stone circles, up to 30 feet in diameter. In one place the walls form a spiral 200 feet wide that circles a large boulder.

The Spanish settlers in the area reported that the walls were already there when they arrived, and when they asked the local Ohlone American Indians, they said the same thing. In 1904, the founder of the Contra Costa Club said the walls were clearly of prehistoric origin and could be evidence that an advanced civilization had once settled in the East Bay. Also in 1904, the professor of Oriental languages at UC Berkeley declared that the walls were surely the work of settlers from Mongolia, as the Chinese tended to wall in their cities, and the mystery walls were reminiscent of the Great Wall of China. Others have theorized that they were built by the early Missionaries, and still others wonder if Sir Frances Drake did not leave colonists behind at the site where he completed the circumnavigation of the globe. While speculations abound, the "Mystery Walls of the East Bay," or the "Great Wall of California" remains a mystery to this day.

Visitors can investigate the Mystery Walls for themselves at several East Bay parks including Tilden Regional Park in Orinda, Ed. R Levin County park in Santa Clara, and Mission Peak Regional Preserve in Alameda County.

Reblogged from http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/berkeley-mystery-walls

EDITED BY: EricGrundhauser (Admin), nadpete, Dylan (Admin) CONTRIBUTOR: third threshold

Mission Peak toward Mt. Allison  

Gravity and friction make the best Bond

Who needs 'Premium Polyurethane Construction Adhesive'?

We wallers have a 

Secret Bonding Agent

Maddy was ten back then

The first time we saw the historic walls at Balsam Lake road Maddy was ten years old. (she's now 21) We took our bikes and cycled nearly a kilometre of road with beautiful old dry stone walls, sometimes on both sides of the road. I was thrilled back then to see that many dry stone walls so close to the road in Ontario and all in one area. I found out the walls were originally built by Canadian railroad tycoon George Laidlaw. The story goes that he imported a Scotsman by the name of Mr Scott to build several kilometres of walls to contain Mr Laidlaw's cattle on the ranch property he bought near Kirkfield back in mid 1800's. Much of what Mr Scott and his men built has disappeared but there are still some walls standing that are in great condition. I saw that sections obviously needed repair and inquired about fixing them. A year later I organized a wall restoration workshop there. 

I taught about 8 students including Dean McLellan (in the orange raincoat) and two of his co workers, the basics of dry stone walling that weekend and we fixed about 20 feet of wall over the two days.

Just last week I walked by that part of the wall we repaired back then and I took this photo. Twelve years later and it still all looks to be in good condition, just like the day we built it.





There was a second workshop the next year at Balsam Lake which Maddy and Dean helped with.

Last week I visited that section of wall too, and there is no indication that it has moved or will need repair again for another 150 years.

This is the new DSWAC logo