Teaching Dry Stone Walling to the Pennine Camphill Community

I was aked to run a course for the young people with special needs at the Pennine Camphill Community in Wakefield (where I keep my bees!). I did this in July and the video below is the result.............

A dry stone walling challenge!

This was to be a great project which took some time to think about!



Nick and Tracey wanted to bring a certain character to their garden and they were pretty sure that dry stone walling could help them acheive the ambience they desired. Have a look at the video below and see what you think!

dry stone bridge - my garden project phase 12b

Just thought I'd pop this onto the blog. It's the latest phase of my garden project which has been ongoing for some time. It spans a storm ditch at the rear of my house adjacent to the Trans Pennine Trail in Silkstone Common. I'll post the full tale of the garden project later.


This is the driest the ditch has been since early May. It's been a foot deep in water and smelly sludge for most of the year making building a VERY difficult task.

With this part of my garden project I was assisted by the Hadrian's International Walling Team of Jalda (Germany), Gui (Brazil) and Dean (Cawthorn UK) - many thanks to them for their help.

Gui and Jalda

Play the video below for the exciting removal of the former when anything could have happened!!!!

......

Les

The camerawoman gets excited as Gui tests the bridge......

Gui

If you would like a dry stone bridge building give me a call on +44 (0)7952 551025 and I'll be pleased to discuss your requirements with you.

Hadrian's Dry Stone Walling Course at Hebden Bridge August 2009

This truly was a multi national course! Two ladies from Germany and a gentleman from Brazil - oh and Jim from Birmingham!! Four students for the Improvers Course and six for the Beginners Course.


As usual when Barry visits Hebden Bridge it was raining! Luckily I'd taken the precaution of buying a tunnel canopy for our course tent which was a God send as we spent quite a lot of time sheltering in there!

I'd like to title this photo - "Is it an ass or is it a horse" - you decide!

The photo's don't do justice to the amount of rain we had!

This is Jalda from Hannover contemplating walling over a hot cup of coffee.

We had a terrific meal on Saturday night where 13 of us sat down at the Olive Branch in Hebden Bridge. Oyuz and his staff served us with some brilliant special meals which were delicious. I'd thoroughly recommend a visit to the Olive Branch if you're in Hebden Bridge and tell them Les from Hadrian's Dry Stone Walls sent you!

We also had a look around the local pubs and the Hole Int Wall was great with live music and a good atmosphere.

This is Gui from Brazil suitably dressed for a British summer!

Suzi, originally from Nuremberg is seen here shaping stone to fit in the wall.

Another fantastic course and a couple of good nights out with some truly great people. Thank you to all the students on the course, Ann and John for accommodating us all at Riverdene House which was wonderful, Helen and Phil for letting us onto their land, the staff of the New Delight Colden for keeping us refreshed and Oyez and staff at the Olive Branch. Nearly forgot to say a big thank you to my co-instructor Barry Heeley!!

L to R: Barry, Joanne, Susi, Jalda, Gui, Gary, Jim, Roy, Matthew and yours truly (Justin and Jacob not in the picture)


And to finish off, a couple of video clips of the course in progress