Steps, stiles, seats and monuments are often required and display gardens at local and national garden shows now provide the more adventurous wallers with excellent opportunities to showcase their work. The RHS Chelsea Flower Show can offer the craft an international shop window for wallers if garden designers provide encouragement for the imaginative use of stone. If you are using rebar for stakes to hold string lines, buy the plastic safety caps that keep people from being impailed if they fall on the end. Keep the wall face smooth and follow the batter to give it a neat shape. There are some additional structures to support the walls.

Watch your hands. When you are stripping out or loading stones, keep your eyes on your hands, not on the next stone you’re going to move. Some of the worst finger pinches I have seen were because the waller took his eyes off his hands in an effort to work faster. Smaller buildings are also still being made with dry stone techniques: three have been recognised by the DSWA’s Pinnacle Award for outstanding use of dry stone during the past 20 years. Dry stone shepherds’ huts can still be found in Europe (Croatia and France, for example) and dry stone is used to construct dwellings in parts of Nepal. TRAINING AND TESTING Throughstones located at regular intervals straddle the wall, holding the two sides together to stop it bellying out and collapsing. They are essential for the wall’s strength. They can be slightly longer than the wall’s width, but must not be shorter as this makes the wall less secure. Ensure that they pin all the stones below them. How many to use and where to put them depends on the regional style of wall and the type of stone. Coping The 3 lb. Mason’s Hammer from Kraft is a basic stone shaping hammer, a great first stone hammer for utilitarian stone shaping. The high quality steel head will need more frequent sharpening than carbide tipped hammers, but this hammer is still favored by many professional wallers and Master Craftsmen. The 3lb weight is comfortable to swing one handed and heavy enough to do some real work.The foundations or footings should be set in a trench a few centimetres wider than the wall, dug down to a firm base. They could be as little as 3cm up to 30cm deep depending on soil type.

Set the frame(s) at the end(s) of the section you are working on and run guidelines along the wall. Make sure the lines aren’t moved by people working. Foundations Here, dry stone pieces are only the material used in the construction of dry-stone walls. Where to get the dry-stone walling material? Dig down up to firm soil base or prepare a base by appropriate base material like stone aggregates or gravels.Top image: Luke De Garis is the apprentice who has joined forces with Martin Tyler at Dry Stone Walling Dry to learn the ancient craft of stone walling, thanks to the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust. Source: Kristie De Garis Walls built with level bedded stone often look neater. Irregular stone tends to look more rustic. However the skill of the waller and style being built affect this as much as the stone. Walls built with larger stone also tend to look more rustic. Smaller stones tend give a more tidy look. While you want to build the best wall possible, don’t try to force the stones into a character they are not. For other wallers, who wish to extend their skills into more distinctive architectural and even artistic features, the craft can offer a most rewarding and satisfying career alongside the other crafts and trades employed in the building conservation sector. There is a place for all levels of waller, male and female, young and old. Take out the main stones and put the top ones furthest from the wall. Keep the largest ones nearest the wall to aid building. Leave a gap of about 60cm alongside the wall for working. Keep throughstones safe and separate.