Our poor neglected entrance...We had inherited a very dilapidated cotswold dry-stone wall. It was falling down, and had a huge hole in the upper part where the services had been trenched onto site.
We had very mixed feelings about the wall. Cotswold stone is very pretty but is not an ideal building materia, with frosts it cracks and every winter loads of walls simply fall down. Also building a new wall was going to cost a small fortune, and the money was all gone...
Luckily Jason came to the rescue. The stone from our old wall was weathered already and the creamier colour was much nicer than the newer bright yellow stone. We decided on a much lower height as I would also be planting a yew hedge behind which will eventually screen us from the road (oh, I daydream about my cloud-pruned yew hedge!).
Jason first cleared the earth bank which was behind the wall, it revealed that the original wall was pretty deep. Then the stone was sorted and up we went again.
I love the weathered colour and shapes. God bless Jason, he worked miracles with stone that others had declared useless. It was not an easy job but he persevered.
We designed a name sign which had rods attached to the rear that we could fix into the wall. We contacted Emsea, a local laser cutting firm in Tewkesbury which had been highly recommended by a friend. They made a very nice sign, they were a little unsure about the undressed metal but I assured them that it matched the house - we don't do shiny & polished!
The wall is probably half the height of the original. We went for a really flat cement top which looks very smart. It looks fab - we've had loads of compliments on it. It's also less likely to fall down.
The yew is in! What a labour of love- Dad and I spent a week digging out the bed with the use of a crowbar and kango to break out the solid rock. You can see some of the larger stone piled at the back - there was a lot! We've got enough to build another wall now...
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