To the many visitors to this area no doubt the drystone field walls and the apparently similar house walls all look much the same.

In fact even when built there were already differences in construction between a field wall and a house or outbuilding wall.

The general construction of an outer layer, an inner layer and 'through' stones to bind the two layers together seems to have emerged in the 17th C. The oldest walls I see are generally thicker and rougher than the 17th C versions.

From observation a general standard seems to have emerged during the 18th C of having house and barn walls approximately 2 feet (603 mm) thick overall plus plaster internally on house walls with small outbuildings and internal walls at 1 foot (304 mm) or 1 foot 6 inch (450 mm).

It is thought that clay was sometimes used in building walls to bed the inner stone walls but set well back from the external face to avoid being washed out by rain. Clay was eventually replaced with lime mortar during the 17th C but the practice of keeping it well back from the external face persisted.

Generally the older the building the bigger the stones at the base of walls it seems (or sometimes the builders set off from a large cobble (boulder) in a field or a shelf of rock.

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13th September 2015