News

A two-day Dry Stone Walling workshop took place on campus October 22 and 23 in the Herb Garden behind DeWolfe House on the Agricultural Campus.

The workshop was led by John Shaw-Rimmington, a dry stone wall building expert from Port Hope, Ontario.

The 50-foot-long public wall installation was built by ten enthusiastic participants in the very beautiful 'Herb Garden' created by 'Friends of the Garden' in 2003.  The Wallace Quarry random-sized sandstone suited itself to doing a Feidin type wedge style wall.

The Feidin wall has many advantages in a workshop situation. Pairs of students can work independently along the wall.  The vertical aspect of this type of wall allows for height to be gained efficiently and large vertical thru stones become locked in quickly. Any gaps can be carefully improved by wedging more stones and strengthened without having to take sections down. 

Most of the base work and prep for the workshop was done by John Shaw-Rimmington and the Botanical Garden staff.  Over the course of the two days participatnswe worked on the wall through heavy rain and humidity and howling winds and were able to complete the build before everyone left on Sunday.