Oddly Built Wall – Can anyone explain why?

[Graham MeekParticipant @grahammeek88282]

Posted by JasonB on 08/03/2023 13:10:29:

You don't actually need a stepped top edge to the wall if laid with horizontal courses, quite often the top coarse is feathered out and then the caping or coping laid to the slope

I would agree, but I had envisaged the top surface of this particular wall to be the walkway. What we don't know from the photograph is how far these stones extend into the wall.

It may well be the ramp surface was wide enough to get a sack truck or cart up, and the width included the top surface of the wall, we just don't know. Feathered stones would tend to crumble under a heavy load.

Regards

Gray,

[John Doe 2Participant @johndoe2]

Posted by Brian Wood on 07/03/2023 15:18:50:

I have to take issue with you here Jason.

In Yorkshire. dry stone walls are built horizontally, in steps if need be on sloping ground, for the very reasons of stability you mention. The use of the wall doesn't alter whether or not that is the case

Regards Brian

Are you sure? I don't remember seeing that feature on the dry stone walls dividing fields, and I walked miles in Yorkshire in my youth.

I suspect these angled walls are just the way the local guys did it in those days, not realising the structural implications – which to be fair, are not very significant for a plain livestock wall. Then somebody else came along and built a barn on top of such a wall, because it was quicker than digging the old wall out and starting again, or they didn't realise the potential consequences, and they somehow got away with it.

[Graham MeekParticipant @grahammeek88282]

Not wishing to put another stone in the ashes, if you will excuse the pun.

Stone and brick buttress walls are usually laid with the courses running perpendicular to the buttress face. Which means the courses are seldom horizontal and usually slope as the wall does in the OP photograph. Any slippage of the masonary will tend to be towards the abutment face and not away from.

I surmised it may have been a ramp. It could also have been part of a larger structure that was taken down to a level where it was deemed safe. Or to a point where the wall was considered safe to build on, alas we will never know.

Regards

Gray,

[Author]

Posts