A wall with no mortar

Drystone walls ….. If you spend any time in Cumbria they’ll be a familiar sight and if you spend any time working in conservation they’ll soon become a very familiar sight. They’re called drystone because they have no mortar to hold them together, just a set of rules that are applied to every stone you put on the wall. How fast you do it often comes down to how often you do it – practice makes …. well, let’s say gradually improving ….

It's always a right mess when you start, but all those stones need to go back

A National Trust drystone walling working holiday getting some practice in ....

Here’s some of the basic drystone wall rules:

• Build the wall with two ‘skins’, with a centre of smaller stones (hearting)
• Try to use the biggest stones at the bottom of the wall, smaller ones higher up.
• Always place the stones on the wall so their tops are not tipped up, they are level flat.
• Two on one and one on two – always try to cross the joins by placing the next stone so that it spans the gap between the two stones below it.
• Place stones so their length goes into the wall, not along it (a tracer)
• Try to ensure the outer faces of the stones present as flat a surface as possible.
• Your wall should be roughly twice the width at the bottom it is at the top. This gives it it’s ‘batter’, or sloping face.
• Finish with a row of larger stones to pin it together (the ‘cams’)

Starting with the biggest stones at the bottom

We’ve had lots of opportunity to put those rules into practice recently. The Red Nab bridleway runs from a popular car park towards Wray Castle, much of it flanked by a wall. It was starting to look like a very tired wall too and in great need of some TLC, which is where we came in. For the last two years we’ve repaired many sections of it, all with the help of volunteers. We recently had one of our last days there with the local group the South Lakes Conservation Volunteers, putting the cams on a long stretch.

South Lakes Conservation volunteers adding the final 'cam' stones

It was a nice feeling to be wrapping things up there but we wonder if it won’t be long before we return. The trouble with fixing up the worst bits of a long wall is that the bits that weren’t so bad suddenly look like the new worst bits by comparison. And that’s where another simple rule comes in:

• For your own sanity, know when to stop ….! 

By Rob Clarke, Basecamp Community Ranger

Fun Fires and Frames

This last month we have been involed in numerous tasks, projects and activities, all of which have led to an extremely interesting month.

We have been involved in clearing the garden of Tarn Hows cottage to get it ready for re-let to new tenants.

Relaxing after a hard day with a brew and a view!



The aliens have landed - you don't want to know where ....

A lot of the jobs we tackle can only be done at certain times of the year and it’s about this time of year that Himalayan Balsam starts to rear it’s deceptively pretty head. You’ll probably have seen it, growing alongside a road or river. Maybe you’ve even thought how attractive its large pink flowers look. But it’s one the most aggressive invaders of our countryside, becoming an increasingly familiar sight alongside our roads and streams as it spreads by seeds being carried along watercourses.



A fine example of a balsam plant, but too early for pink flowers



Luckily, it can be pulled out of the ground quite easily and unlike some other invasive species (Japanese knotweed for example) it won’t regenerate from a tiny sliver of plant left behind. Although this type of work can be dispiriting for a couple of members of staff to tackle on their own, a big gang of volunteers can make an enormous difference in one day. And big gangs of volunteers is what we do well here at Basecamp!





CDOT at the farm with some of the removed piles of plants



There’s a relatively short window of time to get it: it needs to be big enough to identify but not so big that the seed heads have matured. When they have, they pop with impressively explosive force when touched, spreading more seeds. We also need to make sure we tackle it in the right places - if there’s more left upstream those exploding seed heads will quickly send reinforcements down to repopulate a cleared area. 



So, along with the Cumbria Freshwater Invasive Non-Native Species (CFINNS) Initiative – a county wide scheme helping to coordinate many organisations and put together the bigger picture of where the balsam is growing on different landowners land – we’ve been out with our volunteer groups clearing a couple of ‘motherlodes’ of balsam at the tops of watercourses.



The South Lakes group in the sewage works

Unfortunately this has lead us to some decidedly unglamorous places. A first trip out with the South Lakes Conservation Group to an old united utilities sewage works was smelly enough. However, we’ve continued that theme this week with a visit to a farm with CDOT (Community Drugs Outreach Trust) where the balsam was growing in a massive heap of manure!



Behind you!

At the end of these days though we’d done some great work to really knock the plant back. And if that means we see a few less of those pink flowers it makes it all worthwhile!

By Rob Clarke, Community Ranger at High Wray Basecamp