Crumbling Heritage: England's Stone Walls Falling Down

BIGGIN, England - "Something there is that doesn't love a wall" - the freeze and thaw of winter, the clumsy lurching of cattle and the larcenous urges of souvenir hunters.

What Robert Frost wrote of the stone walls in his native New England holds true in Britain, where hundreds of miles fall to ruins each year.

Because no mortar is used, the stability of a dry stone wall depends on the skill of a builder like Gordon Wilton.

Tons of stones

With weather-roughened hands, Wilton tugs at the tons of stones he and his son painstakingly fitted together over the past two years to restore two 300-year-old walls bordering a lane.

He is disappointed. There is a loose stone - only one in 1,300 yards of wall, but that's one too many for the craftsman.

"Jason must have done it," says Wilton, 47, chiding his 19-year-old son.

The pair are among a dwindling number of professional dry stone wallers. Just over 200 are registered today.

"The older ones are dying off, and there aren't enough younger ones coming on to replace them. It's too much like hard work," the elder Wilton said.

Jason Wilton is one of just two young men now training to become master craftsmen.

Yet there's plenty of work.

More than 70,000 miles of dry stone walls stretch across the English countryside, from intricate lattices across rolling green hills to straight and skeletal borders along village lanes. It's nearly enough to circle the globe three times.

Stretches of wall, some of them centuries old, are falling down. About 2,500 miles' worth tumbled from 1984 to 1990.

Only 13 percent of England's dry stone walls are in good shape, 60 percent have seriously deteriorated, and the rest are piles of rocks, according to a survey by the government's Agricultural Development and Advisory Service.

Farmers' declining incomes and a reduction in government grants for repairing walls are to blame, said David Gear of the Countryside Commission.

"What is needed is lots and lots and lots of money to give to farmers and landowners to repair walls," he said. "Millions are needed."

For generations, dry stone walls have pleased the eye, fenced animals, sheltered crops and wildlife. Lichens, mosses, ferns and flowering plants find homes on the walls. Nooks and crannies between the stones provide havens for small mammals and birds, such as mice, stoats, wheatears, pied wagtails and redstarts.

A web across hills, valleys

Silvery gray limestone fences formed a web across the hills and valleys of the Peak District, 150 miles northwest of London.

Wilton has restored much of it to pristine order in his 12 years as a master craftsman waller. He has twice won the Dry Stone Walling Association's Grand Prix for top-quality, competitive building.

"You get transfixed by the job. You're out in the fresh air," said Wilton. Satisfaction comes with knowing that "I'm building something that will last hundreds of years."

Starting a job, Wilton dons rubber-coated gloves, which will last just three weeks, and dismantles the damaged wall, discovering relics like clay pipes, bottles or fossils. Then, with pick and shovel, he levels the soil for a foundation.

Using the largest stones as a base, he builds up. Small stones are packed between the large ones to improve stability. Halfway up, he places a row of through stones, long stones that bind the wall together.

"You need to know stones," said Wilton. "It's like doing a jigsaw puzzle. You have to pick the right piece from the pile. You've got to keep it as tight as you can, really knitted together."

Each stone must cover the join of the two beneath it.

The average height of a wall is 4 feet 6 inches, as high as the base of Wilton's breastbone. With his thumb knuckle pressed to his chest, he scoots along a wall, measuring it for height.

"It's a bit daunting at first, but you just work one stone at a time." he said.

Sometimes decorative or functional touches are added - a stile of jutting stones, a "bee bole" to shelter hives, a "lunkey" for sheep to pass through.

Wilton charges 22 pounds ($33) a yard. Wall builders work for less in Humberside, to the northeast, but command more in Somerset, in southwestern England.

Government grants

Arthur Flowers, owner of the 340-acre Biggin Grange farm, said that without government grants he couldn't have hired the Wiltons to repair 1,100 yards of tumbled-down walls. Peak National Park will pay as much as 80 percent of the cost. The national government has cut its contribution from 50 percent to 20 percent and has threatened further cuts.

"We'd only do what we had to to keep our stock (in)" and might have to install cheaper, ugly wire fences, Flowers said. "That would be a shame, because stone walls are a feature of the landscape. There's nothing nicer than a new limestone wall."

Stone walls were first built in England 4,000 years ago.

But the rush came during the Great Enclosure Movement, when private owners took over former common lands. Between 1750 and 1850, probably as many walls were built as in the previous 500 years.

This movement, which transformed the English countryside, provoked an outcry from the landless. Ironically, much the same outcry today greets the destruction of hedgerows and walls put up during the Enclosure Movement.