The bright purple foxgloves inject a sharp burst of summer colour into this view of Roseberry Topping, the conical shape of which remains instantly recognisable even from its backside. The rough dry-stone wall that cuts across the scene, adds texture and, for me, some interest.
Yesterday I was out on the coast with the National Trust, dismantling thirty metres or so of old walling. The Cleveland Way is being rerouted and encouraged into braided paths to ease the pressure of foot traffic. Without this, erosion could bring down parts of the cliff. The old walls would become pinch points, so they must go. The stones are being salvaged and stored for reuse elsewhere.
Taking down a dry-stone wall by hand makes you realise just how much effort went into putting it up in the first place. It must have felt like one of the labours of Hercules. Two experienced hands might manage seven yards in a day, not counting the work of finding, preparing, and hauling the stone from a quarry that might be a mile off.
There are different types of dry-stone walls. That on the coast was in fact two walls, joined with long stones called ‘throughs’ and filled with rubble, or ‘harting.’ Building it would have involved ‘A’ frames, plumb lines, and string, along with a touch of pride—evident in the curved coping stones that finished it off.
This wall on Larner’s Hill is a rougher affair. A single skin, built from whatever stones had been dumped nearest, fitted together with little more than instinct and the occasional tap of a hammer. Still, it took time and effort. Multiply that by hundreds of miles and you get a manmade feature that has faded into the background of the moors and dales, unnoticed because they are everywhere.
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