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In There Somewhere Find!

I've been thinking about dry stone walls! Many years ago I worked for twelve months as a ranger for the National Park. In that time I helped to construct a bridge over the beck which runs next to Rydal Mount, the home of the Wordsworths, I cleared paths, planted trees and learned, from a true expert, how to build a dry stone wall. Walls are as much a part of the Cumbrian landscape as the Herdwick sheep, the fells, the lakes and the tarns. In the Cartmel and Furness peninsulas and some other areas they are made of limestone and are sometimes topped with decorative water-sculpted cap stones, in some of the Lakeland valleys the stones in the walls are rounded cobbles which have been taken from the nearby river beds while the grandest walls of all are those magnificent walls which soar up and over the fellsides. The definition of a dry stone wall is: A wall, built from unmortared stones, held together by itself. Dry stone walls define our landscape.

 "In There Somewhere" is a small book written and illustrated by David Griffiths. There are chapters describing the different types of dry stone wall to be found around the UK and how they are constructed. The reader learns about footings, throughs, coverbands and copes, curves, cheek ends, corners, hog holes and stiles. But for me the most interesting chapters are those about Steven Allen who is a professional dry stone waller. Steven grew up on a small farm at Greenholme near Tebay right in the heart of Cumbria and from a very young age remembers helping his father repair the walls around the farm. As he grew older he joined the Young Farmers Club and won his first walling competition in 1984 at Flookburgh which is a small fishing village a couple of miles from Grange-over-Sands.

Steven has been the National Professional Champion four times and this has led to him working with Andy Goldsworthy on his sheepfold project. This was a Millennium project, funded by Cumbria County Council, Northern Arts and district councils. Rather than making new sheepfolds Andy Goldsworthy worked with existing folds in various states of disrepair or, in some cases, folds which had disappeared altogether but were clearly indicated on old maps. This enabled him to connect directly with the farming tradition and history of Cumbria but as each sheepfold was rebuilt he incorporated a piece of sculpture to bring new energy to them.

"In There Somewhere" is a fascinating look at the art and history of the dry stone wall and shows how modern art has been placed in the traditional landscape of Cumbria. And finally here is a great poem by Norman Nicholson - a homage to dry stone walls.

Wall

The wall walks the fell -

Grey millipede on slow

Stone hooves;

Its slack back hollowed

At gulleys and grooves,

Or shoulders over

Old boulders

Too big to be rolled away.

Fallen fragments

Of the high crags

Crawl in the walk of the wall.

A dry-stone wall

Is a wall and a wall,

Leaning together

(Cumberland-and-Westmorland

Champion wrestlers),

Greening and weathering,

Flank by flank,

With filling of rubble

Between the two -

A double-rank

Stone dyke:

Flags and through-

stones jutting out sideways,

Like the steps of a stile.

A wall walks slowly.

At each give of the ground,

Each creak of the rock's ribs,

It puts its foot gingerly,

Arches its hog-holes,

Lets cobble and knee-joint

Settle and grip.

As the slipping fellside

Erodes and drifts,

The wall shifts with it,

Is always on the move.

They built a wall slowly,

A day a week;

Built it to stand,

But not stand still.

They built a wall to walk.

Norman Nicholson

   www.sheepfoldscumbria.co.uk

    www.dswa.org.uk

27 September 2009 from Mary Rossall

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