Take a Detailed Look at the Practice of Drystone Retaining Wall Construction Drystone retaining walls make very efficient use of local materials, and sit comfortably in their environment. They make an important contribution to heritage and to the character of the landscape, and are loved by many people who value the skill and ingenuity that has gone into their construction, as well as simply how they look. And yet, in engineering terms, they are complex. They can deform significantly as their loading changes and their constituent stones weather. This gives them ductility--they deal with changes by adapting to them. In some ways, they behave like conventional concrete retaining walls, but in many ways they are better. They cannot be designed or assessed correctly unless these differences are understood. Implementing concepts that require no prior knowledge of civil engineering, the authors: Explain the behavior of earth retaining structures Provide a theoretical framework for modeling the mechanical stability of a drystone retaining wall Outline reliable rules for constructing a drystone retaining wall Include charts to support the preliminary sizing of drystone retaining walls Examine the relevance of drystone in terms of sustainability Describe more advanced methods of analysis Drystone Retaining Walls: Design, Construction and Assessment draws on theoretical work and full-scale practical testing to explain how these structures work, without presuming that the reader has received an engineering education. The book goes on to give enough detail to give the professional engineer confidence in the methods used in design and assessment, and insight into what matters most in the way in which drystone retaining walls are built. It shows how to design ne

Take a Detailed Look at the Practice of Drystone Retaining Wall ConstructionDrystone retaining walls make very efficient use of local materials, and sit comfortably in their environment. They make an important contribution to heritage and to the character of the landscape, and are loved by many people who value the skill and ingenuity that has gone

Gray rock fences built of ancient limestone are hallmarks of Kentucky's Bluegrass landscape. Why did Kentucky farmers turn to rock as fence-building material when most had earlier used hardwood rails? Who were the masons responsible for Kentucky's lovely rock fences and what are the different rock forms used in this region? In this generously illustrated book, Carolyn Murray-Wooley and Karl Raitz address those questions and explore the background of Kentucky's rock fences, the talent and skill of the fence masons, and the Irish and Scottish models they followed in their work. They also correct inaccurate popular perceptions about the fences and use census data and archival documents to identify the fence masons and where they worked. As the book reveals, the earliest settlers in Kentucky built dry-laid fences around eighteenth-century farmsteads, cemeteries, and mills. Fence building increased dramatically during the nineteenth century so that by the 1880s rock fences lined most roads, bounded pastures and farmyards throughout the Bluegrass. Farmers also built or commissioned rock fences in New England, the Nashville Basin, and the Texas hill country, but the Bluegrass may have had the most extensive collection of quarried rock fences in North America. This is the first book-length study on any American fence type. Filled with detailed fence descriptions, an extensive list of masons' names, drawings, photographs, and a helpful glossary, it will appeal to folklorists, historians, geographers, architects, landscape architects, and masons, as well as general readers intrigued by Kentucky's rock fences.

This text shows how to build a wall using the traditional method of dry stone masonry in which carefully selected stones are properly stacked and held together without mortar. As well as being beautiful, a dry stone wall is stronger, more stable and more resistant to climate than a mortared wall. More than 100 full colour photographs of walls, bridges and decorative garden elements in various steps of construction are presented as well as illustrations that show the steps and cross sections that highlight the building methods.

Drystone retaining walls are commonplace on the transport infrastructure in the UK in areas where building stone is readily available. Over the years many drystone retaining walls have been modified by various measures to increase their lives, and these modified structures are considered within this guide.

Join Bruce and Kristin Munday as they traverse South Australia in search of these walls, finding historic masterpieces and insights into rural life in the years following settlement. This book is rich with beautiful imagery of these walls, the stories behind them, and advice to inspire you to start building your own.

Cambridge's Jacques Heyman provides a thorough and intuitive understanding of masonry structures, such as arch bridges, Greek temples, and Gothic cathedrals. Although his approach is firmly scientific, Heyman does not use complex mathematics. Instead, he introduces the basis of masonry analysis, then considers individual structures, through lucid and informative text. 5 photos. 100 line diagrams. 3 tables.

Dry stone walls are a critical component of the landscape in Switzerland and many other countries. They support the cultivation of agriculture and livestock, and they are also are also integral to the ecosystem. And, in many locations across Switzerland, they are in need of restoration by those with a thorough understanding of their roles and vast range of types and purposes. Drawing on the copious research and practice of the Swiss Environmental Action Fund, Dry Stone Walls is a uniquely comprehensive work on the topic, combining cultural history with a guide to plants and animals that find their habitat in such structures and a practical, step-by-step manual to the building and maintenance of dry stone walls. Richly illustrated with more than four hundred photographs and drawings, including many in color, the book contains a wealth of advice for both the planning of new dry stone walls and the care of existing ones, as well as information on structural analysis and the organization of building sites. The book will serve as a guide for future generations everywhere to this ancient practice that is in danger of extinction.

There once may have been 250,000 miles of stone walls in America's Northeast, stretching farther than the distance to the moon. They took three billion man-hours to build. And even though most are crumbling today, they contain a magnificent scientific and cultural story-about the geothermal forces that formed their stones, the tectonic movements that brought them to the surface, the glacial tide that broke them apart, the earth that held them for so long, and about the humans who built them. Stone walls layer time like Russian dolls, their smallest elements reflecting the longest spans, and Thorson urges us to study them, for each stone has its own story. Linking geological history to the early American experience, Stone by Stone presents a fascinating picture of the land the Pilgrims settled, allowing us to see and understand it with new eyes.