Saving Kentucky's Stone Fences

Rain falls on a Friday morning along a windy, hilly section of Athens Boonesboro Road in Clark County. Wearing a safety vest 25-year-old Will Gerrow, a University of Kentucky student, is drenched and dirty.

He stands just a foot off the road beside an old stone fence. A five-foot section of the stone fence has collapsed, and Gerrow is piecing it together one stone at a time. He uses an assortment of chisels and hammers to chip away at the stones as he wedges them into the fence.

Gerrow is practicing a craft called dry laid stone masonry that goes back to the early 1800s in Central Kentucky. “It is a lot like a puzzle, sort of like a free-form puzzle, I guess. I mean, you've kind of got to have, like, the Mason's eye and be able to see what sort of rock you need. That's like, one of the big parts about getting better is just being able to discern, like, what'll fit next best.”

Dry laid means there’s no mortar used. That allows the stone wall to be free draining. Water passes right through the wall allowing any moisture to evaporate. The dry laid stone fences are also built so that over time any ground movement has little or no effect. Built correctly, stone masons say a dry laid stone fence can last a hundred years without much upkeep or maintenance.

It’s a craft Gerrow is learning as an apprentice with the Dry Stone Conservancy, a nonprofit based in Lexington.

“The idea is that I have this as a trade. It can be a backup, if my degree doesn't work out, and if everything does work out, it will be my hobby. I want to, you know, long term, when I get older and I have my own property, I'd like to build a bunch of stonework all over it, which is what I see other masons doing. It's pretty cool to think about.”

The Dry Stone Conservancy is dedicated to preserving stone fences and structures, not only in Kentucky but across the country. Gerrow says he’s worked on dry laid stone masonry projects in some pretty interesting places.

“Last year I went to Virginia, out in Appalachia, we were working on a stone wall there for two weeks, and that was really cool. We were staying in like, an off-season ski resort, and had the whole place to ourselves, like it was really awesome, and working with fun people. And then just this year, I went to West Point Military Academy with the Dry Stone Conservancy. We did some historic wall repairs there from the Revolutionary War period. And then right after that, I actually got to go to the Grand Tetons National Park in Wyoming, and that was pretty incredible. So definitely lucky to be able to go to all these cool places.”

Russell Waddell is the Executive Director of the Dry Stone Conservancy. He says it’s hard to estimate how many miles of stone fences crisscross the Bluegrass.

“We don't have any idea. We do know there was once a much higher concentration of dry stone structures on the landscape. There's no way to really kind of estimate how many miles. A good example would be Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill. There's some 20 miles of rock fences on there.”

The conservancy believes only five to ten percent of the stone fences remain in Central Kentucky from the 1800’s. Urban development and agricultural needs have destroyed many of the stone fences.

“All these walls are being threatened by developments. In fact, right up the road, they're destroying hundreds of feet of rock fence just so they can get an easement for a driveway and have sufficient sight line. And a lot of times they just tear the walls down because they don't know anybody who can fix it. They don't want to pay somebody to repair the walls. And so, what you see is a decline in the actual masons who do the work. For someone like Will, who's you know, in his 20s, interested in the heritage, interested in the craft. It's very important to get someone like Will out here doing the actual work and hopefully inspiring others to do it.”

The Dry Stone Conservancy offers workshops for various levels of masonry.

Waddell says, “We'll have 8,10, 12 participants in a workshop, and we'll teach people about the basics of a rock fence, the anatomy of a rock fence, and then we'll go out there and tear an actual damage section of rock fence out and then rebuild it for some hands-on experience. And a lot of times those are homeowners. They are landscape installers, landscape architects, contractors, people who just have rock fence on their property want to learn about you know, how they're built, or they want to maintain them on their property. And then we offer more advanced classes like stone shaping or building a wall head.”

One of the workshop teachers for the conservancy is Neil Rippingale, a Scottish master stone mason who says he’s taught thousands of people around the world and across the United States. He explained how the Scots and Irish brought their stone masonry craft to the states.

“They came over here for a better life, actually, in the mid-1800s. When they arrived, it reminded them of home, a special limestone in Ireland. So, there's a great connection. And not only that, they brought the recipes, brought their music and brought their skills as well to work on the stonework. It reminded them so much of home from, where they came from, and this is how they settled. They came up through the Cumberland Gap, the Appalachian Trail, and they settled in Tennessee, and actually Kentucky as well.”

There’s a misconception that enslaved people largely built the stone fences in Kentucky.

Waddell says, “There's evidence of slave help on the walls. There's a farm in Paris called Auvergne that has very intricate records that show slaves helping the Irish Masons construct the walls. And so, it really wasn't a real slave-built thing. It was mostly the Scotch Irish.”

Waddell says once the enslaved people were freed, they learned the stone masonry craft from the Scots and Irish and carried on the tradition into the 1900s.

For Gerrow that rich history resonates with him as he works on the stone fences. “Oh, definitely, all the time. It's really interesting. You know, the walls, they kind of tell a story. And, you know, I'm always wondering, when was it built, and, like, who built it? And, you know, did they enjoy building it? It's really cool.”

More information about the Dry Stone Conservancy is at www.drystone.org.

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