Oddly Built Wall - Can anyone explain why?

Endless hours of amusement available here, Dave: **LINK**

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=16.3&lat=51.55687&lon=-2.11253&layers=178&right=LIDAR_DSM_1m

More map options than you could shake the proverbial stick at !!

MichaelG.

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P.S. __ parts of the garden wall, a little higher-up the hill, are also laid to the slope of the hill.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 08/03/2023 09:36:06

Just shows how unreliable personal experience is. Stone walls are common round here, and I only noticed this one was different. Next time I go walkies I'll look closely at the hilly boundary walls. Pretty sure I'll find some that follow the slope!

Very educational this forum!

Dave

Having done a lot of stone walling in my youth, (Great Grandfather was a Stone Mason), most Forest of Dean stone walls were laid horizontal.

I do wonder if the wall in the opening Photograph was at one time a retaining wall for a Ramp from the roadside to higher ground. If it was then this ramp would be a substantial foundation for the building. Laying the courses parallel to the ramp surface would leave a nice clean edge at ramp level and not stepped. Which is what would happen if the wall had been laid horizontally.

Regards

Gray,

You don't actually need a stepped top edge to the wall if laid with horizontal courses, quite often the top coarse is feathered out and then the caping or coping laid to the slope

I would agree, but I had envisaged the top surface of this particular wall to be the walkway. What we don't know from the photograph is how far these stones extend into the wall.

It may well be the ramp surface was wide enough to get a sack truck or cart up, and the width included the top surface of the wall, we just don't know. Feathered stones would tend to crumble under a heavy load.

Regards

Gray,

Are you sure? I don't remember seeing that feature on the dry stone walls dividing fields, and I walked miles in Yorkshire in my youth.

I suspect these angled walls are just the way the local guys did it in those days, not realising the structural implications - which to be fair, are not very significant for a plain livestock wall. Then somebody else came along and built a barn on top of such a wall, because it was quicker than digging the old wall out and starting again, or they didn't realise the potential consequences, and they somehow got away with it.

Not wishing to put another stone in the ashes, if you will excuse the pun.

Stone and brick buttress walls are usually laid with the courses running perpendicular to the buttress face. Which means the courses are seldom horizontal and usually slope as the wall does in the OP photograph. Any slippage of the masonary will tend to be towards the abutment face and not away from.

I surmised it may have been a ramp. It could also have been part of a larger structure that was taken down to a level where it was deemed safe. Or to a point where the wall was considered safe to build on, alas we will never know.

Regards

Gray,