There are things you tend to take for granted, living here in Yorkshire, like the ubiquitous dry stone walls, made from whatever the local stone happens to be, and thus subtly different in different areas of the county. Carefully balanced by skilled wallers, often many generations ago, they mostly stand strong and proud, until tumbled by an over-enthusiastic animal or sometimes a clumsy human, a snaking tree root or a slight shift of ground destabilising things. We take them for granted and yet they can often tell you a lot about the area's history, hinting at long lost lanes and drover's routes, well-used tracks between villages and farms, pathways to work, to school, to church.
There are squeeze stiles, designed to let people through but not animals (and generally not people with large backpacks, though, on the one above, the convenient tumbledown section solved that particular problem!). Occasionally one finds a mysterious 'standing stone' that on closer inspection turns out to be a gatepost, now marooned with neither gate nor wall but with indents that show where the rudimentary hinges once sat.
The old ways of building continue to amaze me.
ReplyDeleteLovely photos. I haven't been to Britain in a very long time now, but narrow countryside roads lined by stone walls is one of the things I remember from road trips there with my parents back in my teens.
ReplyDeleteThe stone walls of Yorkshire are so wonderful. Nice post.
ReplyDeleteI'm a "nut" for stone walls anywhere. They tell us so much, if we would only take the time to listen and learn. Thanks again for your lovely photos. From the base of the mini-mountain in Maine.
ReplyDeleteWonderful to memorialize these beautiful dry stone walls. A friend used to teach people how to make them, but he was better at building than teaching. While teaching he liked to talk, and didn't get much wall building accomplished at all. It's so different when masons use mortar with stone walls.
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