Yorkshire Dales Stone Walls
The dry stone walls are unique and charming aspect to the Dales countryside and bring a distinctive feature to the area. Of all the finest features in the Yorkshire Dales, dry stone walls are possible the most unique feature found in the Dales today. They can’t be avoided. They dominate the Dales landscape for miles at a time, going from Arkengarthdale in the north to Wharfedale in the south. For local people, tourists and visitors alike, the dry stone walls bring an aesthetic, distinctive feature to this wonderful region of England. Richard Meir says this about these dry stone walls, ‘the old walls have shaped our perception of what is right for the Dales.’ Dry stone walls are called ‘dry’ because no cement is used in them. Stones used are made of Sandstone, Gritstone or Limestone. Dry-stone walls are, with hedgerows, one of the most commonly used field boundaries in England, and help create what we now regard as the traditional pattern of field and lanes of rural England. But why are dry stone walls so special? Other areas of England have hedgerows to separate fields of crops and life-stock. But why does the Dales have so many dry stone walls?
All the answers to these questions are that dry stone walls were build to divide and confide, to separate crops from life-stock, to mark farmlands of one farm from another. But why walls? The answer is the Yorkshire Dales has a super abundance of natural stone. Stone is a heavy, bulky material which suits the harsh weather of the Dales as well as being a suitable material for building dry stone walls with. For centuries, local people and wallers have built dry stone walls using this stone found in that area. As a result, most of dry stone walls in the Dales today reflect closer the local geology of the each dale they are built and constructed in. The walls in the Dales are not of a uniform geology rather they reflect the contrasts in the underlying rock in each of the dales.
The roots of dry-stone walling as a method of enclosing fields lie at least as far back as the Iron Age. In Cornwall fields dating from that time are often enclosed by earthen banks surmounting large boulders. These banks are then topped with smaller stones and more earth. Drystone walling fell out of favour in the Dark Ages, not least because the Anglo-Saxons tended to settle in the lowlands, where their agricultural techniques were more successful. Throughout the medieval period, as settlement in the Highland areas increased, so too did dry-stone walling. Many monastic houses, particularly those in remote locations favoured by the movement towards enclosure of common farming and grazing land as English society moved away from feudalism.
The wallers of the Dales have made good use of all types of natural stone which is available. Most of the limestone walls are marked by angular and irregular components and silvery hue in the rock. In Yoredales, many of the walls are composed of grit, sandstone with limestone, which gives these walls a darker, moist and brooding quality. Typically all dry stone walls consist of an outer layer of large stones concealing a core of smaller stones.
Nature has provided the abundance of raw materials for dry stone walling, but it was humankind that decided on where the boundaries and walls that were to be built, and where the walls have been built in this landscape. Dry stone walls have always had a functional role in the Dales. They have aided farming practices, both pasture and pough-land over the centuries and adopted to suit both land-owners/users. Leisure has also determined how dry stone walls have developed over the years and centuries.
For centuries, local people have dry walled this landscape in order to separate their land from others as well as secure shelter from harsh weather in this landscape. The pattern of dry walls also reflects the network and pattern of farming in the region. There are several areas of the Dales where are three or four distinctive areas where partitioning has happened on the walls. Georgian and Victorian walls can be seen cutting across network of Medieval boundaries in the Dales today. They also evidence of dry stone walling from the late-Iron Age, Roman occupation and Middle Ages in the Dales today.
On the higher part of Dales, most of dry-stone walling is 18th century and early 19th century. The walls were designed in straight formation, to have resistance to strong winds and keep clambering, scrabbling sheep together.
Dry stone walls of the way they are built, are very strong in nature. Many stone walls are two hundred years old, some older. Most stone walls were built between 1750 and 1850. They not only prevent stock from getting in or out of a field but also provide shelter. Dry stone walls do not require the maintenance of a hedge or fence, and take no nutrients from the soil. Stone walls provide shelter for wild life; mice, lizards, weasels, stoats, and rabbits use them. Many insects thrive in stone walls also. Many different types of Lichens and mosses grow on them.
Today the dry stone walls are an important landscape heritage of the Dales. They provide a link with the past as well as the present. Many walls today are weathered and scared from elemental forces such as rain, wind and snow. For those travelling the Dales, they provide a unique part of the dale in which to explore, particularly if you are walking. Only time will tell if the dry stone wall will be enduring feature of the Dales in years to come. Currently there is frantic building of walls throughout the region in order to repair existing walls so that generations to come will continue to enjoy this natural part of Yorkshire Dales scenery.