Starting work on a historic cemetery wall

We began work on a historic cemetery wall this week, a complete rebuild from scratch.  The old wall had to be removed to reclaim an overgrown portion of the cemetery, and so we had giant mixed piles of stones and dirt to sort through.

Once the piles were sorted, we started splitting some of the biggest stones into throughs.  It is interesting figuring out the compromises inherent in historic restoration work- many of the old walls built in New England were built poorly, and thus have fallen down over time.  If I were to rebuild them properly, it might not look quite like a classic New England stone wall.  But if I were to build them exactly the same, they would shift and disassemble themselves over the next few decades.  Further complicating things is that many people don’t want “historic” walls to look like they did when they were built- they want them to look old while being new, look like they are falling down while being structurally sound.  It is a tricky line to walk.  One such compromise that I can hide is the throughstones.  These are long, strong stones that tie together both sides of a wall.  Most New England stone walls do not have throughs, but you can sneak them in without compromising the look.  They make the wall last far, far longer than a doublestack wall with no throughs. I walk on my walls as I build them to feel for loose spots, and after throughstones go into the wall, the whole thing feels an order of magnitude more stable.
We placed most of the base stones and the wall ends this week.  I love placing base stones because you get a great deal of wall done in one day.  However, you feel it the next day.  Working with smaller stones, you might place 3 tons of stone in a day.  However, working on these 100-300 pound base stones, you sometimes set as much as 25 tons in a day.  On these days, I need to remember to eat extra meals to offset all the caloric output from the day, or I won’t be able refuel enough for the next day of work.

Building the wall ends is a little more finicky, and was a nice break from setting base stones.  Wall ends are tricky.  A stone in the main portion of the wall has stones on either side of it pushing it, pinning it into the wall.  The end of the wall has that same force from one side and air on the other, so it takes special care to build it in such a way that the wall end holds together.  Long stones called runners tie the wall end back into the main section of the wall in such a way the weight of the wall pins the end stones in place, rather than shoving them out.  Headstones (or tie stones) are like throughs, keeping the two sides of the wall from separating, splitting open like a banana peel.

In the picture below, the runners that make up the first and third layers of the cheek end extend back into the wall up to four feet, although you can't see it from this perspective..  

It is deeply satisfying work.