This week we worked at a grade II manor house in the Chesterfield area where a boundary wall had fallen into disrepair. The neighbour’s side of the wall had fallen out leaving just one side standing and was in danger of all falling down. The main reason it had done this was because the top stones were cemented on and the rest was dry. This means the dry section of the wall moves with land change but the solid structure of the top stones always stays the same which means the bottom of the wall moves and gradually over time will fail, which what had happened in this case.

We started by chipping away at the cement to remove each coping stone individually, at the same time removing the lose insecure dry sections of the wall. As we removed the coping stones it became less secure, but we soon had the section stripped back to the ground.

We then started the task of re-building the wall, the wall progressed well which was helped by the stone which was great to work with. Another factor which effected the structure of the wall was the lack of through stones which tie all the wall together. To correct this we made sure that as we rebuilt the wall we included more of these to help strengthen the it.

Finally once the wall was built to height we started placing the coping stones back on, this time without cement which means the weight of these heavy stones goes through the wall and will move with the wall if there is slight change in land movement.

All in all we were very happy with the outcome as it is strong but aesthetically pleasing.

dry stone walling Services