working with a dry stone waller

[robin wood]

I have been working in another rather nice location today, the National Trust Longshaw Estate just outside Sheffield. We lived here 13 years ago but today I was back to fit a special bench.

The bench is going in front of the visitor centre which serves rather good food, coffee and cakes, hard work makes you hungry.

Having set the main uprights in and temporarily fitted the bench Geoff the waller measured up for the foundations.

Having finished my work on the wood for now my job was sorting the freshly quarried stone, cutting the coping stones and trying to keep Geoff supplied with the stones he needed.

This is as far as we got today but we hope to finish tomorrow.

 

[DrSin]

Looks great already! my hat goes off to both of you!

 

[MartinK9]

Lovely work there Robin

 

[Shewie]

Looks great Robin, the stone and wood will look good against each other.

I've done a few days labouring with a waller up in Wensleydale, it's fascinating to watch the walls grow as the days pass. Your first see a pile of random shaped stone and then the next thing you know there's a wall in front of you that'll last a hundred years.

 

[addo]

Very envious Robin, looks great!

 

[robin wood]

Couple more pictures, it is going a bit slower than expected as we are having to cut all the stone to shape but it is beginning to look really nice. This was end of the day yesterday.

and this after a couple of hours this morning.

Not a bad spot to work.

 

[MartinK9]

A thing of beauty; and it blends in with the scenery on that last picture

 

[shocks]

Lovely, I hope for your sake no bright spark decides they want 700 of them over the next 12 months we will laugh if they do!

 

[Mesquite]

What a superb outlook that bench has. And the bench itself is a work of art Robin

 

[w00dsmoke]

I was a self employed dyker for two years and I used to dream about working with stone like that! Far better than the usual field rubble and whin we have up here. That stuff is like using lego, an absolute breeze to work with. Looks ace though. Nice combo with the wood, we have a lot of that up here too.

 

[traderran]

you did a great job

 

[inthewids]

That is seriously nice work!! We have been doing some dry stone walling at college but it looks like a pile of rubble compared with that!

 

[robin wood]

And today Geoff finished it off.

I often see commemorative benches placed in the countryside, generally they are joined benches designed for an urban or suburban environment and placed with little thought to the local vernacular. To me a bench made from local materials built by a shepherd come waller who lives 2 miles away just feels right somehow.

 

[MartinK9]

Very nice indeed - didn't sit in it then?

 

[helixpteron]

Beautiful, natural craftsmanship.

Every aspect of that is just so good, very well done.