Building New England style stone walls

[quicksandfarmer]

My land is an old dairy farm, all the fields are surrounded by stone walls. They're what locally are called "farmer walls," basically what happens if every time you find a stone you pick it up and take it to the edge of the field, and you do that for about 400 years.

A sample:

I care for my walls in a very simple way, if a stone falls off I put it back, and if a section falls over I pick up the stones and restack them.

But lately I've been thinking about maybe getting a little more ambitious, maybe building some new walls or fixing some of the worse-looking sections. Has anyone done this kind of work and have any pointers? It seems that the basic method is to put the big stones on the bottom and the smaller ones on the top, and try to stack them so they're stable. What else?

Thanks.

 

[Hay Dude]

Don’t drop the big ‘uns on your feet?

 

[ultrarunner]

I built a small 65’ retaining wall with on property field stone…

Nothing has moved but I did drop a large stone on my foot and bothered me for many months…

Mostly I found spreading out what you have to work with and the stones will dictate where they go…

 

[rScotty]

My land is an old dairy farm, all the fields are surrounded by stone walls. They're what locally are called "farmer walls," basically what happens if every time you find a stone you pick it up and take it to the edge of the field, and you do that for about 400 years.

A sample:

View attachment 5357649

I care for my walls in a very simple way, if a stone falls off I put it back, and if a section falls over I pick up the stones and restack them.

But lately I've been thinking about maybe getting a little more ambitious, maybe building some new walls or fixing some of the worse-looking sections. Has anyone done this kind of work and have any pointers? It seems that the basic method is to put the big stones on the bottom and the smaller ones on the top, and try to stack them so they're stable. What else?

Thanks.

I've built a few. It's an art form and I've a lot to learn about it. I thought I was getting the hang of it. Then one trip down to Kentucky past those old horse farms showed me how it was really done. Those old farms have miles of tall & beautiful dry stone walls. Sure impressive.

A backhoe with a thumb that will carfully place a 250 pound river rock out at full stretch is my own minimum tool for the job. You've got some nice 400 pounders in your photo there that were too heavy to put into place...but they sure would have been nice if they could have been moved into position to anchor the bottom row. The backhoe thumb allows you to put the rock down and flip it around until it fits. Makes for a neater, stronger wall.

 

[gsganzer]

The old New England field stone walls. Masonry is something I've always admired, but something I've never learned, other than "pointing" old brick wall mortar on some barns during the summer as a kid. True stonework has always been something I've admired. Our old place had some beautiful Austin limestone on the living room fireplace and outdoor kitchen/patio. I think it's something a person could learn.

Back to your New England walls, most are just the stacked field stones, without any attention paid to bedding/footing, width, height, interlocking stones or a mortared cap. I think by the very simple nature of them, they're not very stable. I guess if you wanted something more stable and permanent, I've seen books on building them, that might make for good reading.

 

[jyoutz]

About 5 years ago I traveled through rural Chihuahua state in Mexico. I was amazed at the miles and miles of stacked rock livestock fences. It must have taken a few centuries to construct those. This is an example:

Mexican stone fence

Mexican stone fence

www.istockphoto.com

 

[Thomas]

History in the making.

 

[JJT]

Pointers - go slow, wear a back brace, leather gloves and get a young helper. Stacking stones is a young person's job... I've stacked a few stones in my life, just enough to know it's not something I want to do.

The unofficial name of our farm is Field Stone Farm. 30 years ago I removed a few hundred yards of hedgerow with old fallen down stone walls. A landscaper bought several tri-axle loads of flat stone. He even cherry picked our creek for large flat stones with moss, (to be cap stones). The landscaper and helper spent the summer stacking a 200' x 6' stone wall for a wealthy lawyer. When they were done the wall looked like it had been there for a lifetime. They watered the moss the first year to keep it alive. 30 years ago that wall cost more than $30,000.

We probably have over a mile of stacked stone walls on our property, a few spots are 4' - 5' tall in good shape, but most of the walls are now 1'-2' tall and 6' wide.....

 

[dodge man]

Ireland is another place with incredible stone walls.

 

[RayIN]

Shoot, around here when a yuppie buys an old farm the first thing they do is tear-down those ugly stone walls. Sure is a shame IMO.

 

[MAX-24-Dean]

The one thing that comes to mind when remembering stacking stones in the stone row was that you work and work and work and its never enough! Its a never ending task keeping the stacked row in place.
Ran some goats one year for brush control, they climb the rock row and displaced hundreds and hundred of rocks. More work for me as a kid!
From your description I don't think there is much more that you can do to keep the rocks in place, but what you are already doing.

 

[Jim T.]

John Jerome's book Stone Work is a great read on this subject

 

[sandman2234]

We picked up many many rocks when I was a kid, but we just added them to the dam down at the pond to keep the water at a higher level. Daddy had the back pasture rocks removed so he could run a baler over it, and they just piled them in a gulley.
David from jax

 

[Captain Dirty]

The earliest New England stone walls were "thrown" and consisted of a several feet wide by a few feet high linear pile of small, "one man or a boy" stones; the only consideration was removing a nuisance for plowing. The next iteration was "stacked," a couple of feet wide and taller, often including "two man stones" that reclaimed some of the space taken by thrown walls although, without the constant maintenance of Robert Frost's Mending Wall, would revert to thrown appearance. In the 19th century as landowners became wealthier and the immigrant population grew, walls were "laid" or "placed" with consideration of permanence and show of craftsmanship; see JJT's remarks in post #8 above.

The cardinal rules of making a stone wall are "one over two and two over one" to prevent "running bonds" and to place the the stone with the flattest side up and level and with the long axis transverse. "Shimming" with small stones while building is okay, but "chinking" with small stones to fill gaps and voids after building is not. The wall will spit the chinkers out.

The book I recommend is The Granite Kiss by Kevin Gardner. Most books on wall building use flat stones or ashlar (rectangular stones); your frustration will mount as you try to deal with the irregular, glacier tumbled fieldstone you likely will have to use. Good luck, and may you avoid the granite kiss (getting a finger caught between two stones).

 

[Runner]

True stonework has always been something I've admired. Our old place had some beautiful Austin limestone on the living room fireplace and outdoor kitchen/patio. I think it's something a person could learn.

My Dad was a mason and built the house I grew up in from brick, block and stone, including this stone fireplace. In the lower right corner of the picture you can also see a matching stone planter in the living room.

 

[2manyrocks]

I'd suggest "Building Stone Walls" by John Vivian.

Amazon.com

Enough practical illustrations to show how it's done. Stones weigh so much that stacked the right way, gravity holds them in place.

Endless puzzle of trying to figure out how to stack irregular shaped stones so they lock together.

If you intend on building many stone walls, a Chinese mini-ex equipped with a couple of good lifting straps would really be nice to have.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

If you intend on building many stone walls, a Chinese mini-ex equipped with a couple of good lifting straps would really be nice to have.

That's where I'm leaning. Hydraulic thumb too.

 

[RobertEH]

I can add zero input on the OP's questions. But I went to Wales a few years ago and did some climbing in an old Slate mine. They used the rock to build all kinds of stuff including buildings, roads, pathways, and walls. It was amazing. There were clusters of buildings there that looked like they were used for housing. Looked like something out of Tolkien. Thought I would share the some photos.

 

[greenie]

About 5 years ago I traveled through rural Chihuahua state in Mexico. I was amazed at the miles and miles of stacked rock livestock fences. It must have taken a few centuries to construct those. This is an example:

Mexican stone fence

Mexican stone fence

www.istockphoto.com

Stone walls go on for miles in Durango in Mexico too. I wonder why the effort - the land isn't arable now - it's mostly sage brush which indicates insufficient rainfall and or poor soil. Wikipedia says the area was occupied from 800AD to 1400AD. Maybe to keep livestock in place?

 

[Highlandr]

Maybe to keep livestock in place?

Property boundrys?