Dry Stone Walls and Barbed Wire
There are countless thousands of miles of these walls all over Northern England; I've seen an estimate of 100,000 miles in the country overall, and the criss-crossed pattern they impose over gently rolling hills is one of the most picturesque impressions of the region.
They are called "dry" because they have no mortar or other agent to bond the stones together. Their construction has to be very precise and is also extremely laborious. In the rugged Lake District, it is particularly striking to see them cross a valley and then head impossibly far up and over a mountain before dissappearing out of sight.
I think most were originally constructed hundreds of years ago when labor input calculations were very different. For the most part newer fences appear to be done in barbed wire, which requires relatively little work to roll out. Even maintaining the stone walls must require considerable effort. In the relatively depopulated areas of the high fells they are often partially collapsed, and in many places one often sees an old partially-crumbling dry stone wall topped with barbed wire as a means to keep it functioning without constant maintenance. However, we did actually meet a fellow hiker who still built dry stone walls for a living. He also told us that he lived in a 15th century house, which I thought had a certain symmetry. Dry stone wall on the Coast to Coast Walk near Patterdale, Cumbria, England.
Dry Stone Walls and Barbed Wire
There are countless thousands of miles of these walls all over Northern England; I've seen an estimate of 100,000 miles in the country overall, and the criss-crossed pattern they impose over gently rolling hills is one of the most picturesque impressions of the region.
They are called "dry" because they have no mortar or other agent to bond the stones together. Their construction has to be very precise and is also extremely laborious. In the rugged Lake District, it is particularly striking to see them cross a valley and then head impossibly far up and over a mountain before dissappearing out of sight.
I think most were originally constructed hundreds of years ago when labor input calculations were very different. For the most part newer fences appear to be done in barbed wire, which requires relatively little work to roll out. Even maintaining the stone walls must require considerable effort. In the relatively depopulated areas of the high fells they are often partially collapsed, and in many places one often sees an old partially-crumbling dry stone wall topped with barbed wire as a means to keep it functioning without constant maintenance. However, we did actually meet a fellow hiker who still built dry stone walls for a living. He also told us that he lived in a 15th century house, which I thought had a certain symmetry. Dry stone wall on the Coast to Coast Walk near Patterdale, Cumbria, England.