1/9/2006: About Dry Stone Walling

Dry stone walls are an essential feature of the Cevenol landscape; terraced bancels  that transformed inhospitable mountains into arable land as well as freestanding walls that protected crops and contained animals. At Mas du Diable these ancient walls have retained the sloping hillsides to enable cultivation since the 12th Century.  Some 800 years later our terraced walls, as with much of the Cevennes, are falling down.



Dry stone walling is the skill we need to maintain and enhance this land. The dry stone terraces cover about 5 hectares and stand as high as 10ft or as low as 3 ft, with steps from terrace to terrace and waterways built in stone. The walls are built with the schist and quartz of a mountain steeped in history. As caretakers of this land we feel a responsibility to try to restore and maintain these walls wherever we can.

Before we left the UK we did a 2 day dry stone walling course in Lancashire with Tamarisk. Once we got to Mas du Diable, however, we realised how much more we needed to learn before we could attempt to tackle the miles of stone terracing needing repair. One thing we did realise was that this place is so beautiful, the landscape so magnificent and so unique that other people might want to come here to learn how to dry stone wall as well.

With that in mind we contacted the Drystone Walling Association in England to see if we could find an experienced waller who might like to work with us, with the aim of establishing regular dry stone walling courses here at Mas du Diable. We were looking for people who we would get on with, who had bags of enthusiasm and the real skills to be able to teach us and the people who would come on the courses. We were looking for kindred spirits and that is what we found in Tracey Blackwell and Andy Hudson.

Tracey was so enthusiastic we warmed to her immediately. From our initial exploratory email to her actually arriving at Mas du Diable was only a matter of weeks, that's the kind of no nonsense action we like.

Tracey arrived in March this 2006, with her walling partner Andy Hudson. We admired the fact that they really wanted to know what it was all about before committing themselves. They wanted to see the land, touch the stone, and meet us so that we could all find out if our idea could work and if we could take it forward together. They needed to see the terracing and make walls. Did I mention these two are walling anoraks, Tracey's words not mine, who live and breath dry stone walls and its infectious.

Not having walled with schist before they couldn't wait to get their hands on it. So down we went to the terrace, I planned to turn into our new Potager. Rachel and I assisted by lugging great slabs of stone with a wheel barrow and hunting for stones with a walling face while Tracey and Andy slotted stones into a giant jigsaw that became our first freestanding wall, dubbed the Yorkshire Wall. Read more about Building the Yorkshire Wall It took the two of them one and half days and what emerged is the most beautiful wall, much loved by us and approved, with admiration, by our Cevenol neighbours.

Before leaving Tracey showed me how to strip out a low retaining wall and laid the footings and steps leaving me with a project I could continue working on. Read more about Re-building a Retaining Wall

The week Tracy and Andy spent with us was brilliant and they are returning, this September, bringing with them the 3rd member of their Yorkshire walling team, Andy Couldwell. This time they will be teaching a dry stone walling workshop, deconstruction and rebuilding a low retaining wall. Read more about the Drystone Walling Training Day.

This course will be a kind of trial run. A one day workshop, for people we know locally who want to learn the beginnings of dry stone walling. The plan is to test how a course might run so that we can see how it works and get feedback on how best to run courses in the future. We hope the success of this test course will spur us on to more walling courses. Starting with rebuilding lower terraces and working up to tackling some of the mightier 10 footers.

Our end objective is not to make money but to share this magical place with others and to add our generations' contribution to the future of this land, to retain its ancient character and purpose.  There is something very special about replacing the stones someone else's hand may have laid 800 years ago, we become part of the landscape, its history and its future.  

For more information about the Yorkshire dry stone wallers visit their website ATA Dry Stone or go to About the Yorkshire dry stone wallers page on our site.