Stonewalls are lovely ...........

............ Until this happens. We went away Friday morning and all was well, when we got back this greeted us. The stones were all over the lane and we had to move them out of the way to be able to get past. The sheep had all got out and were up the lane also. This rushed because of all the rain we had the night before. The water can get in amongst the stones and can over time cause them to fall. As we have a lot of walls on the farm it can be very time consuming putting up the gaps. This one could take 10-12 hours to re- build.

[Diana Moss]

Some one has their work cut out repairing the wall

[Ann Williams]

Oh no Shirley. Hope it didn't take the edge off your time away. These walls are so beautifully constructed and it's such a skill to build them.

[Kitty Hawke]

That has just happened to a wall in the next village from our town......road was closed for days while all the stones were removed and a large amount of dirt and grass fell with them. Will you rebuild it yourselves?

[Tunia McClure]

I've always admired your walls. I didn't realize how much work they can be.

[Pamela Fillhouer]

wow...but what beautiful stones!

[Tom]

S0orry about the wall and the work but a great image

[Kim]

Oh my, I'd never thought about how the water could affect the stone walls. Hope you recovered all your sheep.

[Peter Grave]

We had a Prime minister here a few years back Shirley and his quote was "Life wasn,t meant to be easy". Do you just restack them or do you use some mortar to hold them together.??

[Tony]

For all their mass, a body of water will overpower them. Dry stone walls are beautiful but strangely fragile under pressure.

[sally agnew]

That is a shame. I was keen to build a dry stone entrance to our property, but we think a gabion wall would be more appropriate, a great way to use all the granite rocks scattered around our property. Another big job ahead I guess :)

[Malcolm James]

Yes looks a bit of a rebuild job there!

[Claire]

Oh no! We have a witnessed a lot of rebuilding of such walls over the summer in this area. Hard work ahead of you, the radox will be needed I think!

[Debbie]

Oh no.... thats terrible. I bet you felt every muscle in your body afterwards. Great that you managed a photo

[Louise]

Oh no... I've done dry stone walling so I can appreciate the work that'll go into rebuilding this.

[ShirleyB]

@snowy @flowerfairyann @cutekitty @tunia @earthbeone @tosee @kimdavis @peterlgrave @tonydebont @hermann @lavenderhouse @claireuk @deborah63 @roachling Thank you all for your comments. It didn't spoil our day away, it's just one of them things and we are used to it happening somewhere on the farm quite regularly. There is a local man who comes at weekends and puts any gaps up for us. It cost us a bit but the amount of walls we have it would take too much time up to do them ourselves. It will be re- built as a dry stone wall, but a little mortar will be used on the wall end where the gate will be hung. Luckily our sheep all stayed on our own lane so were easy to gather up again.

[bruni]

As if you don't have enough to do on a farm. hope you retrieved all of your sheep.. what a shame to have to spend the time to rebuild the wall.

[ShirleyB]

@bruni It is just one of the things that go with stone walls but many have stood for hundreds of years so there is not a bit of wonder parts fall now and again.