Stone Walls

[QRTRHRS]

I laid this wall at a previous property. My wife saw this pile of rocks along the road and stopped to ask the owner if he wanted to sell them. He did, for all of 100 bucks! I rented a dump truck, took my tractor over and brought home eight loads of stone. I did have to buy a few more large flat stones for the steps.

 

[jyoutz]

I laid this wall at a previous property. My wife saw this pile of rocks along the road and stopped to ask the owner if he wanted to sell them. He did, for all of 100 bucks! I rented a dump truck, took my tractor over and brought home eight loads of stone. I did have to buy a few more large flat stones for the steps.View attachment 3805046View attachment 3805047View attachment 3805049View attachment 3805054

Nice work!

 

[quicksandfarmer]

I laid this wall at a previous property. My wife saw this pile of rocks along the road and stopped to ask the owner if he wanted to sell them. He did, for all of 100 bucks! I rented a dump truck, took my tractor over and brought home eight loads of stone. I did have to buy a few more large flat stones for the steps.

I will sell you stones for $100 a truckload, you load, all day long! We're like the Saudi Arabia of stone here.

 

[Carl_NH]

Same here in NH - we are in glacial till and ledge and have trucked probably 200 yards of stone off of 4 acres. But did use a lot of them on the property.

 

[thclimer]

I laid this wall at a previous property. My wife saw this pile of rocks along the road and stopped to ask the owner if he wanted to sell them. He did, for all of 100 bucks! I rented a dump truck, took my tractor over and brought home eight loads of stone. I did have to buy a few more large flat stones for the steps.View attachment 3805046View attachment 3805047View attachment 3805049View attachment 3805054

Ok now we are starting see some really nice stone work.

How long did it take you to build these walls and stairs?

 

[thclimer]

Same here in NH - we are in glacial till and ledge and have trucked probably 200 yards of stone off of 4 acres. But did use a lot of them on the property.

View attachment 3805304View attachment 3805308View attachment 3805309View attachment 3805310View attachment 3805311

That is some very nice work as well, they will last a very long time!

 

[Carl_NH]

That is some very nice work as well, they will last a very long time!

Thank you, They need maintenance from time to time, as they move a bit over the winter

 

[Oaktree]

Wow, some nice stonework! Mine pales by comparison, but I'm still kinda proud of it.
Main wall's about 4' high, continues to the right of the steps about half that height. Mostly hidden by some plants my wife put in on the embankment above.

 

[LouNY]

It takes a lot of work and some artistic talent to lay out a stone wall that stays in place. Around here the frost heaves in the winter are a bit damaging to them, but the trees and brush in the hedgerows are what does the most damage to them. There have been miles of them buried around here to open up little fields and make larger ones. That has been going on as long as I can recall.
When I was young I heard that many of the stone drain ditches and stone walls were built by the Irish immigrants to this country. I can remember the old timers when I was young talking about how the Irish worked for 15 cents a day digging ditches and filling them with rock for field drainage.

Edited; we have run across several stone drains in the fields here.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

OK, got out today and took some pictures. I literally have miles of walls, just wandered around and took a few shots.

This is what locally they'd call a "farmer wall," as in it was stacked by a farmer and not a stonemason. Around here property lines always have a stone wall, this wall is on a property line that was established in 1695. Note the largish stone to the left of the picture, it's over six feet long.

A lot of the older buildings have stone foundations, this barn was built around 1850. Since the ground is so stony it wasn't practical to dig a basement by hand, so the floor of the basement is at the original grade and fill -- mostly stones! was brought in to get access to the first floor.

This is the entrance to the basement of that barn. Some largish stones by the door.

This building is called a "pound," it was used for confining small animals.