Dry stone walling is an ancient craft using only stone with no mortar to build them. Dry stone walls are a culturally important human contribution to the landscape, and the craftsmanship used to build dry stone walls and buildings has developed for thousands of years and are a traditional feature of the Yorkshire Dales.

Dry stone walling involves either stripping and rebuilding existing walls that have fallen into disrepair, or gapping - repairing gaps where the walls have collapsed. Few new walls are built, although foundations often have to be relayed. Dry stone walls are ancient boundaries and are an attractive part of the landscape.

Building walls by bonding the stones without mortar is a common sight in Britain. In upland farming areas dry stone walls often replace hedges and fences as field boundaries. Typically dry stone walls consist of an outer layer of large stones concealing a core of smaller stones. The walls, carefully constructed by skilled stone workers, can support bird, insect and wildflower populations, as well as animals like weasels and bats. Plants such as lichens, mosses, liverworts and ferns cling to the rock itself or grow in small pockets of windblown soil and weathered rock. Dry walls are a particularly valuable habitat for insects and spiders. Woodlice and millipedes live in the damp recesses, slugs and snails use the crevices for daytime cover. Large creatures such as toads, frogs and lizards use walls as winter homes as well as hunting grounds. Various birds often use walls as nesting sites.

In British agriculture Dry Stone walling has been used since the early Middle Ages for buildings and animal pens. Most existing walls are the result of the extensive enclosure of farmland in the 18th and 19th centuries, when the first professional wallers appeared. This transformed the landscape which previously consisted of vast tracts of open land, common grazing land, heath and moor land.

We have lost more than 5000 miles of dry stone walls in England and Wales since 1947, mainly due to neglect after damage by livestock, dogs and walkers dislodging capping stones, and vibration damage from heavy vehicles.

Built well, they can also last for hundreds of years.

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