17th century dry stone wall at Muchalls Castle, Scotland

Inca wall of dry stone construction in Cusco, Peru

Dry stone is a building method by which structures are constructed from stones without any mortar to bind them together. Dry stone structures are stable because of their unique construction method, which is characterized by the presence of a load-bearing façade of carefully selected interlocking stones. Dry stone technology is best known in the context of wall construction, but dry stone artwork, buildings, bridges, and other structures also exist.

Dry stone walls[link]

A dry stone wall, also known as a dry stone dyke, drystane dyke, dry stone hedge, or rock fence, is a wall constructed from stones without mortar to bind them together. As with any dry stone construction, the structural integrity arises from compressional forces and the interlocking of the stones. Such walls are used in building construction, as field boundaries, and on steep slopes as retaining walls for terracing.

Location and terminology[link]

Terminology varies regionally. When used as field boundaries, dry stone structures often are known as dykes, particularly in Scotland. Dry stone walls are characteristic of upland areas of Britain and Ireland where rock outcrops naturally or large stones exist in quantity in the soil. They are especially abundant in the West of Ireland, particularly Connemara. They also may be found throughout the Mediterranean, as in the Balearic Islands, Catalonia, València, Languedoc, Provence, Liguria, the Apulia region of Italy, Croatia, Cyprus, and in the Canary Islands, including retaining walls used for terracing. Such constructions are common where large stones are plentiful (for example, in The Burren) or conditions are too harsh for hedges capable of retaining livestock to be grown as reliable field boundaries. Many thousands of miles of such walls exist, most of them centuries old.

In the United States they are common in areas with rocky soils, such as New England, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania and are a notable characteristic of the bluegrass region of central Kentucky, where they are usually referred to as rock fences, and the Napa Valley in north central California. The technique of construction was brought to America primarily by Scots-Irish immigrants. The technique was also taken to Australia (principally western Victoria and some parts of Tasmania and New South Wales) and New Zealand (especially Otago).

Mosaic embedded in a dry stone wall in Italian Switzerland

Similar walls also are found in the Swiss-Italian border region, where they are often used to enclose the open space under large natural boulders or outcrops.

The higher-lying rock-rich fields and pastures in Bohemia's South-Western border range of Šumava (e.g. around the mountain river of Vydra) are often lined by dry stone walls built of field-stones removed from the arable or cultural land, serving both as cattle/sheep fences and the lot's borders; sometimes also the dry stone terracing is apparent, often combined with parts of stone masonry (house foundations and shed walls) held together by a clay-cum-needles "composite" mortar.

Dry stone wall construction was known to Bantu tribes in south-eastern Africa as early at 1350 to 1500 AD. When some of the Zulu migrated west into the Waterberg region of present day South Africa, they imparted their building skills to Iron Age Bantu peoples who used dry stone walls to improve their fortifications.^{[citation needed]}

In Peru in the 15th century AD, the Inca made use of otherwise unusable slopes by building dry stone walls to create terraces. They also employed this mode of construction for freestanding walls. Their ashlar type construction in Machu Picchu uses the classic Inca architectural style of polished dry-stone walls of regular shape. The Incas were masters of this technique, in which blocks of stone are cut to fit together tightly without mortar. Many junctions are so perfect that not even a knife fits between the stones. The structures have persisted in the high earthquake region because of the flexibility of the walls and that in their double wall architecture, the two portions of the walls incline into each other.

Construction[link]

Using a batter-frame and guidelines to rebuild a dry stone wall in South Wales UK

Newly rebuilt dry stone wall in South Wales UK

There are several methods of constructing dry stone walls, depending on the quantity and type of stones available. Most older walls are constructed from stones and boulders cleared from the fields during preparation for agriculture (field stones) but many also from stone quarried nearby. For modern walls, quarried stone is almost always used. The type of wall built will depend on the nature of the stones available.

One type of wall is called a “Double” wall and is constructed by placing two rows of stones along the boundary to be walled. The rows are composed of large flattish stones. Smaller stones may be used as chocks in areas where the natural stone shape is more rounded. The walls are built up to the desired height layer-by-layer (course by course), and at intervals, large tie-stones or through stones are placed which span both faces of the wall. These have the effect of bonding what would otherwise be two thin walls leaning against each other, greatly increasing the strength of the wall. The final layer on the top of the wall also consists of large stones, called capstones, coping stones or copes. As with the tie stones, the cap stones span the entire width of the wall and prevent it breaking apart. In addition to gates a wall may contain smaller purposely built gaps for the passage or control of wildlife and livestock such as sheep. The smaller holes usually no more than 8  inches in height are called 'Bolt Holes' or 'Smoots'. Larger ones may be between eighteen and 24  inches in height, these are called a 'Cripple Hole'.^[1]

Boulder walls are a type of single wall in which the wall consists primarily of large boulders, around which smaller stones are placed. Single walls work best with large, flatter stones. Ideally, the largest stones are being placed at the bottom and the whole wall tapers toward the top. Sometimes a row of capstones completes the top of a wall, with the long rectangular side of each capstone perpendicular to the wall alignment.

Another variation is the “Cornish hedge” or Welsh clawdd, which is a stone-clad earth bank topped by turf, scrub, or trees and characterised by a strict inward-curved batter (the slope of the "hedge"). As with many other varieties of wall, the height is the same as the width of the base, and the top is half the base width.

Different regions have made minor modifications to the general method of construction — sometimes because of limitations of building material available, but also to create a look that is distinctive for that area. Whichever method is used to build a dry stone wall, considerable skill is required. Selection of the correct stone for every position in the wall makes an enormous difference to the lifetime of the finished product, and a skilled waller will take time making the selection.

As with many older crafts, skilled wallers, today, are few in number. With the advent of modern wire fencing, fields can be fenced with much less time and expense using wire than using stone walls; however, the initial expense of building dykes is offset by their sturdiness and consequent long, low-maintenance lifetimes. As a result of the increasing appreciation of the landscape and heritage value of dry stone walls, wallers remain in demand, as do the walls themselves. A nationally recognised certification scheme is operated in the UK by the Dry Stone Walling Association, with four grades from Initial to Master Craftsman.

Notable dry stone walls[link]

• Mourne Wall - twenty-two mile long wall in the Mourne Mountains location in County Down, Northern Ireland
• Ottenby Nature Preserve, built by Charles X Gustav in mid 17th century, Öland, Sweden

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Dry stone walls

Dry stone buildings[link]

Intihuatana ritual buildings of dry stone at Machu Picchu, Peru

While the dry-stone technique is generally used for field enclosures, it also was used for buildings. The traditional turf-roofed Highland Black house was constructed using the double wall dry stone method. When buildings are constructed using this method, the middle of the wall is generally filled with earth or sand in order to eliminate draughts. During the Iron Age, and perhaps earlier, the technique also was used to build fortifications such as the walls of Eketorp Castle (Oland, Sweden), Maiden Castle, North Yorkshire, Reeth, Dunlough Castle in southwest Ireland and the rampart of the Long Scar Dyke. Many of the dry-stone walls that exist today in Scotland can be dated to the 14th century or earlier when they were built to divide fields and retain livestock. Some extremely well built examples are found on the lands of Muchalls Castle.

Dry stone bridges[link]

Medieval dry stone bridge in Alby, Sweden

Since at least the Middle Ages some bridges capable of carrying horse or carriage traffic have been constructed using drystone techniques. An example of a well preserved bridge of this type is a double arched limestone bridge in Alby, Sweden on the island of Öland, (shown at right).

Dry-stone markings[link]

Dry stone marking or cairn

In the UK and Switzerland, it is possible to find dry stone constructions without any obvious function. The largest and oldest of them, such as Stonehenge, are likely related to ancient pagan rituals. However, the smaller structures may be built just as signs, marking the mountain paths or boundaries of owned land. (Some stand on the boundary between Italy and Switzerland; see photo). In many countries, cairns are used as road and mountain top markers.

Ancient walls[link]

The Lion Gate of the Mycenae acropolis is dry stone

Some dry-stone wall constructions in north-west Europe have been dated back to the Neolithic Age. Some Cornish hedges are believed by the Guild of Cornish Hedgers to date from 5000 BC,^[2] although there appears to be little dating evidence. In County Mayo, Ireland, an entire field system made from dry-stone walls, since covered in peat, have been carbon-dated to 3800 BC. The cyclopean walls of the acropolis of Mycenae have been dated to 1350 BC and those of Tiryns slightly earlier. In Belize, the Mayan ruins at Lubaantun illustrate use of dry stone construction in architecture of the 8th and 9th century AD.

See also[link]

• Broch
• Cairn
• Cabanes du Breuil
• Fieldstone
• Great Zimbabwe
• Incan architecture
• Masonry
• Mending Wall
• Retaining wall
• Stone wall
• Stora Alvaret
• Village des Bories

References[link]

• Patrick McAfee, Irish Stone Walls: History, Building, Conservation, The O'Brien Press, 2011
• Alan Brooks and Sean Adcock, Dry Stone Walling, a practical handbook. BTCV. 1999
• The Dry Stone Walling Association, Dry Stone Walling, Techniques and Traditions. 2004
• Murray-Wooley, Carolyn and Karl Raitz, Rock Fences of the Bluegrass, University Press of Kentucky. 1992.
• Francis Pryor, Britain BC, Harper Perennial. 2003.
• Colonel F. Rainsford-Hannay, Dry Stone Walling, Faber & Faber. 1957
• Louis Cagin & Laetitia Nicolas, Construire en pierre sèche, editions Eyrolles, 2008

Gallery[link]

• 

  Medieval Drystone wall in the Ottenby Reserve, Oland, Sweden

• 

  Inca wall of dry stone in Sacsayhuamán fortress, Cusco, Peru

• 

  Completed end section of dry stone wall in south Wales UK

• 

  Dry stone wall with window in Bignasco, Switzerland (Swiss-Italian part)

• 

  Detail of a dry stone wall in the Yorkshire Dales

• 

  Adding dry stone wall to convert the space under the large rock into the functional building near Bignasco, Switzerland

• 

  Inca wall of dry stone at Machu Picchu, Peru

• 

  Dry stone walls in Kumamoto Castle, Japan. Completed in 1600.

• 

  Bluegrass and rock fence of local limestone in central Kentucky

• 

  A rock fence in Guilford, Vermont.

• 

  The dry stone arch, so called Porta Rosa (half of the IV Century b.C.), in Elea, Italy

• 

  Showing a "sheep creep" in a drystone wall on Dartmoor UK

• 

  Old drystone wall near a chambered cairn below Cuff Hill in Scotland

• 

  Dry Stone wall on Dartmoor

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Dry stone

External links[link]

• Dry Stone Walling Association of Canada
• Dry Stone Walls Association of Australia
• The Dry Stone Wall Association of Ireland
• Dry Stone Walling Association of Great Britain
• British Trust for Conservation Volunteers skills page on dyking
• BTCV dry stone walling book
• Current Archaeology notes on Working Holidays repairing dry stone walls
• The Drystone Conservancy, USA, dedicated to preserving and promoting dry stone masonry
• Stone-Line, Group of the Swiss dry stonemasons
• SVTSM, Association of the professional Swiss dry stonemasons
• Umwelteinsatz, Drystone activity of the Swiss Foundation for Environmental Action
• The Character of a Wall. The changing construction of agricultural (dry stone) walls on the island of Gozo, Malta Article by Adam Thompson based on anthropological field research. Omertaa, Journal for Applied Anthropology (www.xpeditions.eu)
• Dry Stone Constructions: A Common European Heritage (in Catalan, French, Greek, Italian and Spanish)
• Dry Stone Landscapes, Observatori del Paisatge (English) (Catalan) (Spanish) (French)
• Dry Stone Work on Mallorca
• Pajare e costruzioni a secco, on dry stone constructions in Puglia, Southern Italy (in Italian)
• L'architecture en pierre sèche (in French and English)
• Project Alpter, Terraced Landscapes of the Alpine Arc, network of associations in Austria, Slovenia, Spain, France, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Switzerland (in English, Italian and French)

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (January 2011)

Robert Joseph "Bob" Vila (b. June 20, 1946) is an American home improvement television show host known for This Old House (1979–1989), Bob Vila's Home Again (1990–2005), and Bob Vila (2005–2007).

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Vila, a Cuban American native of Miami, Florida, received a Bachelor degree in entomology from the University of Florida in 1969. After graduating, he served as a volunteer in the Peace Corps, working in Panama from 1971 to 1973.^[1]

Career[link]

Vila was hired as the host of This Old House in 1979 after receiving the "Heritage House of 1978" award by Better Homes and Gardens, for his restoration of a Victorian Italianate house in Newton, Massachusetts.^[2] On This Old House, Vila appeared with carpenter Norm Abram as they, and others, renovated houses. In 1989 he left the show under controversial circumstances. Some cite the reason as being a series of conflicts with This Old House executive producer Russell Morash arising from his involvement with outside commercial endorsements,^[3] while others cite a specific instance- Vila's commercial work for New Jersey-based Rickel and the subsequent retaliatory pulling of underwriting from Rickel's competitor Home Depot and lumber supplier Weyerhaeuser- as the reason behind his departure.^[4] He was replaced by Steve Thomas.

After leaving This Old House, Vila became a commercial spokesman for Sears, and beginning in 1990 he hosted Bob Vila's Home Again (known from 2005 on as Bob Vila), a weekly-syndicated home improvement program. The series ran for sixteen seasons in syndication before it was canceled by distributor CBS Television Distribution due to declining ratings.^[5] Vila has also appeared on various episodes of the situation comedy Home Improvement as himself, where main character and cable TV host Tim Taylor (played by Tim Allen) saw him as a rival and went to great lengths to try to beat Vila at things, which he never succeeded in doing. Vila also made a cameo in the 1993 comedy spoof Hot Shots! Part Deux.

Vila has written ten books, including a five-book series titled Bob Vila's Guide to Historic Homes of America. As of 2006, he still appears regularly on television. He can also be seen on the Home Shopping Network, selling a range of tools under his own brand.

Other productions[link]

Bob Vila's less widely known productions include Guide to Historic Homes of America (1996), In Search of Palladio, (1996) for A&E, and Restore America for HGTV.

Historic Homes of America[link]

Guide to Historic Homes of America (1996)^[6] included two-hour segments on each of four major regions of the United States: the Northeast, including New England and the Mid-Atlantic States,^[7] the South, the Midwest and the West.

The Northeast

• Morris-Jumel Mansion overlooking Yankee Stadium in Washington Heights, Manhattan
• Dyckman House on Broadway in Upper Manhattan
• Hancock Shaker Village in western Massachusetts.
• Strawbery Banke restoration in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
• Olana - "a palatial amalgam of Middle-Eastern and European influences."^[6]

The Mid-Atlantic States

• Chesapeake Bay and Annapolis, Maryland - William Paca House and Hammond-Harwood House
• New Castle, Delaware - George Read II House, built by the son of George Read
• Baltimore, Maryland - Homewood House on the Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus
• Washington, D.C. - Decatur House on President's Park and Tudor Place in Georgetown

The South

• Thomas Jefferson

• University of Virginia - ten residential pavilions surround the great, terraced Lawn.
• Ash Lawn-Highland
• Poplar Forest - octagonal house filmed while undergoing complete restoration
• Monticello - includes Dome Room at top of building (not open to the public) and Honeymoon Cottage.

• Natchez, Mississippi

• House on Endicott Hill - early trader's house
• Rosalie - Federal architecture mansion^[8] with John Henry Belter^[9] furniture and a panoramic view of Mississippi River.
• Stanton Hall - "perhaps the grandest Greek Revival house anywhere."^[6] Designed by Captain Thomas Rose.^[10]
• Longwood - begun in 1860 by Samuel Sloan. Never finished: construction halted in April 1861.^[11]

• Texarkana, Texas - the Ace of Clubs House.^[12]

The Midwest and West

• Ellwood House - built by barbed wire entrepreneur Isaac L. Ellwood in DeKalb, Illinois.
• Frank Lloyd Wright

• Dana-Thomas House in Springfield, Illinois. "It's richer in detail than any other Wright home."^[6]
• Fallingwater in the Laurel Highlands of the Allegheny Mountains

• Cooper-Molera Adobe - early Spanish Colonial owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Monterey State Historic Park.
• Filoli - Woodside, California in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Designed by Willis Polk.
• Tor House^[13] - stone house and tower overlooking the Pacific Ocean at Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, built by Robinson Jeffers.

In Search of Palladio[link]

In Search of Palladio (1996) is a three-part, six-hour study of the work and lasting influence of the 16th-century architect Andrea Palladio. Palladio designed various types of buildings, but the series concentrates on his domestic architecture. (See also: Palladian Villas of the Veneto).

I. Villas of the Veneto

• Villa Giustinian, Roncade. - For Vila this building (not by Palladio) provides the context for Palladio's innovative thinking - gothic battlements, portcullis and stone walls concealing a Renaissance palace and farm buildings.
• Villa Pisani^[14] in Montagnana - a descendant of the original owners served as Vila's guide.
• Villa Cornaro - A suburban villa on a town street, a palatial residence which was also an on-site place of business for running a large farming enterprise.
• Villa Barbaro.
• Villa Emo - For Vila this is "perhaps the most dramatic farmhouse ever built".
• La Rocca Pisana - spectacular hilltop belvedere by Palladio's pupil Vincenzo Scamozzi.

II. The Palladians in England and Ireland

• London: Chiswick House, Marble Hill House and Stourhead.
• Bath, Somerset: Queen Square,^[15] The Circus and the Royal Crescent.
• Republic of Ireland: Casino at Marino - "the architectural equivalent of a Fabergé egg".
• Northern Ireland: Castle Ward - overlooking Strangford Lough with both Palladian and Gothic facades and interiors.

III. The Palladian Legacy in America

• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Mount Pleasant.
• Marblehead and Waltham, Massachusetts: Jeremiah Lee Mansion and Gore Place
• Hudson Valley, New York: Boscobel House Museum - purchased in 1955 for thirty-five dollars. Meticulously restored, situated on a bluff on the east bank of the Hudson River opposite the United States Military Academy at West Point.^[16]
• Hartford, Connecticut: Austin House - built for Wadsworth Atheneum director Arthur Everett Austin, Jr.
• South Bend, Indiana. In Indiana Vila looks at University of Notre Dame architectural school "where Palladio and classical architecture are taken seriously indeed", Vitruvian House^[17] designed by Thomas Gordon Smith and Villa Indiana designed by Duncan G. Stroik.^[18]

Restore America[link]

Restore America consists of fifty one-hour segments which explore historic preservation and building restoration in each of the fifty U.S. states. Anticipating the turn of the 3rd millennium, it was first broadcast on HGTV between July 4, 1999 and July 4, 2000.^[19]

Bibliography[link]

Bob Vila has written two dozen or more books, which include:

• 1980: This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House. Boston: Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-17704-0.
• 1990: Bob Vila's Guide to Buying Your Dream House. Boston: Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-90291-8.
• 1993-1994: Bob Vila's Guides to Historic Homes of America. New York: Quill (HarperCollins imprint).

• Historic Homes of New England. ISBN 0-688-12493-3.
• Historic Homes of the South. ISBN 0-688-12492-5.
• Historic Homes of the Midwest and Great Plains. ISBN 0-688-12495-X.
• Historic Homes of the West. ISBN 0-688-12496-8.
• Historic Homes of the Mid-Atlantic. ISBN 0-688-12494-1.

See also[link]

• List of Famous Cuban-Americans

References[link]

External links[link]

• Bob Vila's Official Website
• Bob Vila Video Channel on BobVila.com
• Bob Vila Biography at bobvila.com
• Bob Vila TV Show at bobvila.com
• Bob Vila's Home Again at bobvila.com
• Bob Vila Contractor Referral Website
• Bob Vila's Profile on LegendaryLife.com
• Bob Vila at the Internet Movie Database