This October four volunteers from the Dry Stone Walling Association came and spent two days teaching a group of twelve volunteers and staff how to build a drystone wall which unsurprisingly took quite a bit of thought and planning. 

We spent the two day training course going through the best way to take down and rebuild a section of drystone wall in need of repair, learning the difference between top stones, through stones and packing/hearting stones.

Stephen Atkinson led both the post and wire and top wire fencing courses. He taught us everything that’s involved in putting up a post and wire fence, from how to put in the strainer posts, to tensioning the wire. The top wire fencing took a bit more thought needing taller posts and being more difficult to tension but hopefully out fence will do the job. 

It was a brilliant experience and everybody pitched in, whether it was lifting the large foundation stones or trying to finding the perfect rock to driving a post into the ground or stapling on the wire.

Louise