One of our regular wallers was down in Toulouse watching the Olympic sailing today, hoping for gold. The rest of us were at Mazonwath also achieving gold.

After ten years of hard work, we finally finished the last stretch of wall that divides our hay meadow field from our other fields at Mazonwath. The last bit of the puzzle was to completely remove the wall and rebuild it a couple of metres away.

The reason  – the huge trees were knocking the wall over so we re-located it to give the trees more space but also prevent further wall collapses. It is fantastic that we have had all manner of people help us out on this last bit of wall – retired and working people who have or do work in the NHS, local government, finance, universities, journalism, project management and technology, thatching… the list goes on, but it shows how the walling bug grabs people and how many turn to trying out dry stone walling when they retire and have more time to do it. We hope you agree our finished wall is indeed gold standard!

The wall at the start of the day (left)

The next question then is – so where do we go walling now? Fear not there is plenty more to do!! We will be moving over to the other side of the field and this time tackling an external wall for a while. It is a funny situation as there is a group of mature trees, surrounded by walls on three sides. The only access is via our Mazonwath hay meadow. But, the trees and wall are actually on our own Little Asby Common next door and not part of our Mazonwath land. Why any access from the Common was blocked we have no idea. What we do know is that the tree roots and the cows are gradually knocking down bits of the wall and it needs a rebuild. So plenty more scope for lots of others to join us to learn dry stone walling in future, and for those already working with us, to hone our skills a bit more.

Positioning troughs

The final wall crew (above)

Next week is back to High Borrowdale. Join us if you can via https://www.friendsofthelakedistrict.org.uk/Event/monday-12th-august-2024-high-borrowdale-general-tasks