Enthusiasts keep ancient craft alive

MEET the enthusiasts who leave no stone unturned in the quest for the perfect wall.

They are dry stone wallers, practitioners of a craft that dates back to the Neolithic Age. For the uninitiated, a dry stone wall is built by hand without the use of mortar.

Methods vary, but all rely on the careful selection and placement of interlocking stones to achieve a stable structure.

Dry stone walls and structures are part of Australia’s history for hundreds of years. They are found throughout the country, but mostly in Victoria, NSW, South Australia and Tasmania. Most often they take the form of stone fences on pastoral or grazing land. Other uses include fish traps built by Indigenous Australians, shelters in early mining settlements or sculptures and retaining walls in towns and cities.

A great example can be seen at Camperdown Showground in western Victoria, where two of Australia’s finest practitioners, David Long and Alistair Tune, recently built a double wall from scratch with the help of a team of enthusiastic members from the Dry Stone Walls Association of Australia.

The wall, about 10 metres long and 1.2 metres high, will progressively be added to and become a feature of the showgrounds – and perhaps serve as inspiration for others to learn the skill.

Association president Jim Holdsworth said building walls is a “bit of a jigsaw puzzle” that requires a good visual sense. “A good waller will look at the stones lying around, selecting the best one for the best location, maybe chipping a bit off if necessary,” he said.

“It all relies on the interlocking ability of one stone to another – obviously there’s no mortar or mud used, but weight and gravity.” Smaller stones are wedged in between the larger ones to make a solid wall “without stones that rock and roll around as it goes up”.

“It is an interesting thing to watch. You can see how clever it is, even down to the way they minimise the amount of heavy lifting.”

Camperdown, on the edge of Victoria’s basalt plains, is a mecca for lovers of dry stone walls; there’s even a self-drive heritage trail out of the town taking in 10 sections of the district’s most diverse and significant walls.

Brochures on the history, styles, functions, building techniques and builders of the walls are available from local visitor information centres.

Cherished as the walls are by their devotees, challenges remain, especially in terms of conservation.

“Farmers have to be able to run an efficient business and if dry stone walls are getting in the way of modern farming practices, well, that’s a bit of an issue,” Jim said.

“One of the things the association is strong on is encouraging farmers to realise they are custodians of our heritage and landscape, and to look after the better examples.”

Jim said one aim of the demonstration in Camperdown was to teach farmers some of the rudiments of wall construction so if they did knock a gap in one they would be able to rebuild the end so it remains stable.

The association also encourages councils to undertake studies with a view to protecting the best walls. This is bearing fruit in places like Melton, on Melbourne’s western fringe, where urban growth is changing the landscape.

It is the first municipality in Australia to have conducted a comprehensive survey of its dry stone walls and is now amending its planning scheme to protect 60 or 70 of them. As well as advocacy and preservation, the association runs weekend courses, conducts field trips and puts out a triennial newsletter.

“Most of our members are people who just enjoy the cultural and landscape values of dry stone walls, or just enjoy the history or heritage,” Jim said.

For more about the association, go to dswaa.org.au or www.facebook.com/ drystonewallsaustralia