Sunday, January 12, 2025

Dry Stone Fence

I'm dipping back into the past for awhile until we have something new and interesting to share around here.  This is a remarkable old stone fencerow that is actually a dry stone wall. It was located on the farm beside our previous home, and I walked here with our dog for several years.  The stones are all piled to create vertical walls, and it stretched from nearly at the barn almost to the back of the farm.

At first glance you might not notice anything special about this line of stones, but once you look more closely you notice how unique this is.

It's a little hard to illustrate with photos because in the summer it's covered with green and in the winter with white.  A skiff of snow like this is ideal.

As you can see, it's a long farm lane that went straight back down the middle of the farm.

By getting closer I think you can see the vertical sides better.

This was probably built 120 years ago, but is still stable today.  You could climb up and walk along the top; it's about five feet thick.

I expect we will lose many features of the cultural landscape like this, just because they don't fit well with modern farming methods.  This is undoubtedly the most interesting old fence I've found since we moved up to the valley.



5 comments:

  1. I remember learning about this place when you first wrote about it. Very interesting indeed.

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  2. That's quite a jumble on the surface of it, but, remarkably, it has weather the elements for more than a century.

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  3. That's a beautiful wall and difficult to build with rounded stones. Those old stone walls are just fascinating, especially when you consider the labor that went into building them. I really enjoyed this article https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/how-stone-walls-became-a-signature-landform-of-new-england-180983250/ Here in northcentral Pennsylvania we have our own stone wall heritage https://forestandfield.blogspot.com/2018/01/unfinished-wall.html

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  4. What a wonderful wall. It should have historic significance recognition, whatever way possible! Dry stone walls are difficult in the first place, but with all those round stones, this one is indeed a work of art.

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  5. I love those old stone walls. Lots of work goes into that!!!

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