Oddly Built Wall - Can anyone explain why?

On the way to visit mum I stopped in Corston to buy her some stamps, and took the opportunity to photograph this building which has intrigued me for years:

It's an old outhouse, built on the corner of a walled garden. The hatch and slit window are consistent with hauling bags from a roadside cart into the upper part of a stable.

The outhouse is built on top of an existing wall, that's been laid at an odd angle (red line), not horizontal (green line).

Peculiar in my limited experience, because brick and stone walls are normally built in strictly horizontal courses. If laid at an angle as in the photo, the weight tends to cause sloped courses to slide down the ramp. The construction is unstable, and I think it's dangerous to build on a sloped wall as has been done here. The outhouse on top is built conventionally with horizontal layers.

Though it doesn't show in the photo, the lower wall is a different type of stone to the building, which is the area's usual limestone, likely 19th Century or earlier.

Presumably to save money the outhouse builder took a risk by reusing an existing wall, even though it was tilted. And got away with it, because there's no sign of movement!

But why build a wall with off-horizontal courses in the first place? To me it implies a need to support something heavy resting on it at an angle, in the distant past. Anyone know the answer or able to offer an intelligent guess?

Dave

Possibly the original wall was built when the road surface sloped down like the top of the wall. If you could dig down below the pavement level, I suspect you would find the foundations of the wall sloped down below pavement level.

Subsequent road "improvements" have levelled the road surface.

Old research photos might throw up an answer, local library?

Not if it started out as a 3 ft high boundary wall or similar and was subsequently used for the base of the existing building. Most dry stone walls for example follow the slope of the ground and are not stepped or laid in horizontal courses

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Mundane answer from me :

Because it was originally built as a boundary wall, and followed the terrain.

MichaelG.

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Edit: __ Post crossed with Jason’s

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 07/03/2023 15:13:18

Good example of the old wall following the natural contours just up the road on google maps

I have to take issue with you here Jason.

In Yorkshire. dry stone walls are built horizontally, in steps if need be on sloping ground, for the very reasons of stability you mention. The use of the wall doesn't alter whether or not that is the case

Regards Brian

What about this and loads more images on a google search of Drystone wall Yorkshire

Edited By JasonB on 07/03/2023 15:24:08

nothing wrong with building on a slope. done very often when needed.

Field walls with random stone are one thing, ornamental walls are usually built with coursed stone

Dave

Pay a visit to the Withshire County Archives at Chippenham. They should be able to tell you all about the building.

It seems to me that we are suffering from cabin fever having been driven out of our workshops by the cold. It should be warmer at the weekend.

JA

Different types of wall only one with horizontal coursing the double stack, as me and Michael said it was possibly a (field) boundary in another life

Admittedly the wall in question has fairly regular coursing which would make slipping more likely, usually you would have more raddom stone sizes so there are no long sloping joint lines to slip

I have seen brick walls built following the slope of the ground rather than horizontaly, especially in farm buildings.One I remember only looked odd after it was pierced with a vertical doorway, or rather the doorway looked odd.

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Works for the Chinese!

Rob

I like the boundary wall suggestion. This clip from the 1909 25" Ordnance Survey map shows the road slopes down to cross a stream.

The road is the A39, built as a Turnpike in 1707 connecting Bath to Wells, and re-engineered by McAdam sometime before he died in 1832. My guess is the original road dipped down steeply to ford the stream, but was raised high over a causeway that removed the awkward dip. In which case the sloping wall could be earlier than 1832, and it's right for the boundary of the Brookside property, sat in a 0.852 acre garden.

Not sure going to Chippenham will help, because Corston was in Somerset, not Wiltshire. Since then it's been in Avon, and is now ruled by the wonderfully named Banes, straight out of Lord of the Rings. I guess the records are in Taunton. Much of the village is owned by the Duchy of Cornwall. The current Duke is Prince William, heir to the throne, but he wasn't there to ask when I dropped in.

Dave

Looks like there are two Corstons. One in Wilts on the A429 near Malmesbury and SOD's one in Somerset.

I think the boundary wall suggestion is probably the correct explanation. However if you take a look at some of the canal roving bridges especially ones that cross at an angle you will see many examples of brickwork anything but horizontal. On the skew bridges the brickwork forming the arch starts off on the slope and then straightens out to the crown and ends up with the opposite slope on the other side. Admittedly the courses are perpendicular to the direction of thrust. They really are gems of bricklaying art.

regards Martin

Oh and you should see some of the older houses out in the fen. They started off upright but then the fen shrank and the whole building ends up tilted.

regards Martin

Isn't one explanation the whoever built the wall might not have had a spirit level, common now, but less likely to be so in the past. Built by eye a wall following the ground level looks better!

I think we might have to get Corston CID in to get the real answer?