A great way to mark your Entrance

This photo was taken by Sean Donnelly at the start of a 50 foot section of wall which he is constructing. More of Sean's Photos and a wee dog in an entry soon.

Arched Doorway

This photo was sent to me by "Stone on Stone" Mike Ellis .Here is what he said about it.
"This arch was built as a focal point of a monastic healing garden set in the ruins of a church. It was built on sight for the Portland Maine flower show U.S.A. It was built by Matt Carter and Mike Ellis of Green Island Stonework. (Greenislandstonework.com) This piece was built in approx. 2 days.......16-18 hour days, using a random selection of stone. Although tired we were pleased to be awarded the ingenuity award for the show. What a fun project."

Colourful Canadian Wall

As always the work of John Scott deserves special note. I attach some of his comments about the history of this fine artistic venture. His is a wall built with great skill and strong emotions following a breakup.

"Sometimes a fella has to think about life,himself,ethics---that's what country music is for. This wall was built, a few stones every night, in the dark, after attempts at resolving muted outbursts and perhaps after the companionship of a beer ---often too many.The stones were all rejected from other projects or replaced by stone dismantled and left on their own, to try to understand their sudden explosion from an otherwise comfortable bond. It is also made from stones my kids and I collected as we went on adventures, fishing trips and visits to grandmas and properties of people whom I hold dear to give it life, strength and balance. While the cheekend marks the end of a wall, it also signifies a strong and confident new beginning, bursting with colourful potential."

Coping with different Rock

Recently I was working with a group of trainees at the Scottish Lime Centre in Charlestown. One of the outstanding features of the site was that there was a wonderful collection of different types of stone. Our challenge was to extend the present wall using the type of stone available. You can possibly see from the first photo that we had various sandstones, bassalt, red and white marble, mudstone, granite all around for the main part of the wall. As an exercise we used bassalt kerb stones, mudstone and a yellowish sandstone on different sections of coping. It will be very interesting in the long term to discover how each of these sections stands up to the weathering. The group did a tricky job very well.

Thanks for a good couple of days to Alice, Colin, Fiona, Jill, Kenny and Stan. Also thanks to residents Steve and Tom for their preparation help and advice.

For more information about the Lime Centre and courses available go to http://www.scotlime.org/

Neat wall

This very neat construction was built by Karl Kaufmann. Although not truly dry stone work, Karl has used the same principles and produced what I consider to be magnificent wall. He is based in Ivoryton in USA. Interesting name for a town I wonder what the origin refers to. Buffalo Horn?
For more examples of his work go to http://www.kaufmannmasonry.com

Brick oven

This brick oven was built by John Shaw-Rimmington recently from stone removed from a previously dismantled oven. The second shot shows the fire clay bricks used to prevent rocks cracking with the heat.

For more information contact JSR at shaw-rimmington@sympatico.ca

Training Course in Canada

This course using mainly novices was the first run by the recently formed Dry Stone Guild of Canada under the direction of Dean McLellan. The course instructor was Andy Loudon from the UK. A very high standard was achieved.

Water Has it's Way

During the reign of Queen Victoria a road was built along the North side of Loch Muick(pronounced Mick)on her Deeside estate. A wall stretched for several miles beside the road. Some very neat drains were set in with channels across under the surface . You can see from this photo where the original stream flowed down to the drainage point. About ten years ago the water had found a new route from a spring down to the road. I was asked to divert the flow back to it's original 19th century position. I did that but within another five years the water had "decided" to revert. Finally the estate have given up the struggle and put a new drain across the road.Both the courses still show and emphasise that when dealing with H2O the liquid has a mind of its own. Sometimes as humans we learn these lessons very slowly.

Water Feature

This very attractive water feature was built by Canadian waller Eric Landman. I shall post more of Eric's fine work in this blog over the summer.

Castle Hill New Zealand

This photo of an Sacred site in New Zealand was taken by Peter Nickolls. I find it quite amazing.