Dry stone walls are a key feature of the Cotswolds where we are based, criss-crossing the hills and meadows creating beautiful field boundaries that total a remarkable 4,000 miles. Some of the earliest date back to neolithic times but most originate from the 18th and 19th centuries when sheep farming was profitable and labour was cheap.
We are lucky to have about 150m of old walling that runs along our south-western boundary dividing our borders and vegetable garden from the meadows beyond. Clothed in moss and peppered with ferns and lichen the wall is a superb habitat for wildlife from mice and voles to beetles and snails. Constructed from limestone there’s every chance that the materials were dug from the very land we garden; the immediate farmland has numerous small quarries dotted around and remnants of old spoil heaps now inhabited by small copses punctuate the east and westward points of our garden.