For those in the know, dry stone is an amazing building material. Using nothing to bind it, bar the way the stones are placed together by the skill of the waller, there is a huge variety of structures and features that can created. Traditional dry stone walling in the UK was all about building livestock proof boundaries or retaining [...]
How not to build a dry stone wall
Building dry stone walls is dead easy. You basically place one stone on top of another, or as our American cousins like to say, you “stack ‘em”. And it really is that simple. Except that you need to make sure that you cover your joins – “one on two; two on one” as the old-timers used [...]
Building walls for kids…
Today we finished building a fun dry stone playpark at the Olivebank Children’s Centre in Musselburgh. Normally we’d be discouraging kids from playing on our walls. In this case we decided to make an extra wide wall topped with extra soft turf and actually encourage them to climb all over it. I guess this just goes [...]
Going back to look at jobs after the landscaping bit
Usually when I build dry stone walls for clients, further landscaping, such as laying turf, happens after I have finished my bit of the project. So I hardly ever get to see the completed garden. I went back to Roslin today to check on the job I did there in the Spring. The lawn has [...]
Dry stone Walling courses
Local DSWA branches run training courses for people interested in learning how to build dry stone walls. Training courses are run over a weekend, usually about four times a year, and are aimed at absolute beginners. Each course is very hands on, with nearly two full full days of practical work taking down and rebuilding [...]
Balvenie Masters of Craft Awards
I am very pleased to announce that I was one of three people short-listed in the stone category for the inaugural Balvenie/Sunday Telegraph craftsman of the year 2011.
Civic Trust Award
Stone Inspired was given the best small project award in the bi-annual building awards given by the Dollar Civic Trust for our work on a property in the town in the summer of 2008. See the Dollar project page for more details.