Dry stone walling

Every organised society throughout history has piled stone on stone to make walls. Walls that are practical statements of protection, possession, wealth and control. Structures that take on a particular beauty in the eye of the builder.

Over time they weather, settle and collapse - open quarries in need of repair. In the UK alone there are reportedly 125 000 miles of dry stone field walls - sufficient to girdle the earth five times.

In one bleak corner of the island, a hardy band of dry stone wallers has gathered to repair one small section of wall forming part of a war memorial park. Grizzled veterans of many years lugging Pennine stone slabs across Cheshire bog and heath are joined by a group of volunteers all strangely drawn to this daftest of outdoor pursuits on the wettest, windiest weekend of a damp, gusting year. It was billed as a 'taster workshop' for amateur, aspiring wallers like myself.

'Welcome,' booms Barry, our works foreman for the day and chairman of the local Dry Stone Walling Association. 'Let's get on with it.' Barry is not one for unnecessary introductions and flowery words of workshop intent. He points to a plie of stone and tugs the largest piece over to where he wants a new lines of stone graded and arranged aslant for easy access.

His assistant, Dora, hands out carefully prepared name badges. The ink is already running in the drizzle. I begin to pin mine onto a lapel, veteran of many a workshop that I am. 'No, not there,' Dora corrects my fumblings, 'we pin our names to the back of our caps - that's the only part of you we will be seeing for most of the weekend.' Straight away I felt initiated into the wry, upside down, practical stonemasonry of the dry waller. It is indeed a different world.