About

Behind the cottage there is about forty metres of dry-stone wall, half of it standing and half of it in the grass where it fell years before I arrived. Putting it back up, a metre or two at a time, has become the thing I do on dry weekends. Along the way I have built a few smaller pieces with lime mortar: a raised bed, three steps, a low retaining wall for the compost.

I am self-taught from two courses, a shelf of books and a great deal of taking things down again. These pages record what I built, how long it took, what the stone weighed and where it went wrong. Measurements are in metres and tonnes, and the mistakes are all mine.