Thanks for that GG, I did enjoy it - very apt lyrics for me too. You know, I often think about "the perfect voice". I don't mean best voice for Rock or for Jazz, I mean the best and sweetest whatever the genre, where you hear a note sung and think; that's perfect ! For a while I thought it belonged to Karen Carpenter - a couple of phrases of "Goodbye to Love" are sublime. But I've been listening to Sandy since she came up on the thread, I think she beats Karen into a cocked hat.
I was getting my morning Sandy Denny fix and found this version of "Who Knows Where the Time Goes". Thought you might enjoy it. (we briefly touched on Fairport Convention in the past) http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=3ycaoV0WXfk
I can't believe the condition. I thought it had been restored - because of those wooden lintels. Nothing lasts that long over here - with rain frost wind and rot. To build load bearing verticle drystone walls to that height is extraodinary.
Part II Small cores were taken from the logs in order to evaluate the tree rings. This sectional view through a wall gives you an idea of the construction. The core of the wall was less refined, but as they reached the exterior faces, the stones were carefully selected, shaped and laid to obtain a flush face. No mortar was used, but the exteriors were often coated with a sun baked "adobe" stucco, reinforced with fine shreds of grass or yucca fibers. The National Park maintenance crews typically mortar (portland cement mortar) the top few courses of stone on all walls for preservation.
Part I "Walling" is interesting stuff indeed. Lichens on the south and algae on the north means you don't need a compass. Kind of like the algae on the north side of a tree. The climate in that region of New Mexico is extermely dry. in fact most of NM and the southwest U.S is very dry, therefore no algae. You will find some lichens. In fact it is due to the dry climate that accurate dating was able to be obtained through tree rings. The wood used in construction doesn't rot. The wood lintels here are roughly a thousand years old...
Wythes, copes, headers or faces, toppers and throughs all the same i think. Family walling history doesn't go much beyond Grandad Johnnie, but they all must have been able to wall, because of the "allotment" or "intake" farming practices. - A piece of open moorland, say 40 acres would be enclosed (walled in) by the land owner. He would then let it to a tenant (my ancestors) who would build all the internal walls and reclaim and improve it piece by piece in lieu of rent. I've realised what looks odd to me about those Chaco walls, its the climate they're in, to my eye they look brand new, built from fresh quarried stone. Our walls are green on the north side (algae)
reddish brown on the south (lichens) with various mosses and fungi all on a background of black from Victorian soot. The only bare stone is a soft crumbley sandstone, that weathers too quickly for anything to grow on it and would be no good for building anything like that. Did they use a mortar? Some of those walls seem very ambitious for drystone walling. Also those large headers have incredibly flat faces. You don't get that with our local sandstone unless it is sawn, or if you lay it sideways on (as it will only split flat along one plane .)
“…go on for hours” That’s fine with me. It is music to my ears, carrying on about the primordial masculine traits that are intrinsic to the working of rocks. I can relate to rocks much better than I can to mutilated hemp smokers who swear. “throughs” I equate to “headers” in double wythe brick masonry. How many generations, in your family, does your wall span? Is that concrete vault part of a septic system? I found this pic among a pile of slide photos I converted to digital. This is from my first trip to Chaco in the early 1990's. The stone was actually covered in a layer of mud "plaster".
Don't get me started on Drystone walling, I could go on for hours. The dimensions depend on the size and shape of the raw materials, as does the batter to some extent. That wall(it was a fence around a water treatment installation.) had 3ft wide footings then went from 2' 6" at ground level to about 1' at a height of four feet. It was finished off with a top through (horizontal coping I suppose) and those verticle stones. There was another row of "throughs" at half height to bind the two faces together. The verticle "toppers" or copings are pretty much universal with drystone wall fences. They are a quick way to get a bit more height and hold every thing down, I like to have them tightly wedged together so cattle can't rub them off. Sheep walls have uneven rough and loose toppers to discourage them from jumping up on top of them. They can be shaped for more fancy work.
As for clinkers, the whole point is to use local material, whatever there is you pick up and use whether its river wash, pebbles, slate, limestone, granite, clinker or whatever. The shape and workability of the different stone changes the appearence and dimensions of walls from place to place. The relative squareness and workability of the local Millstone Grit means you don't need much batter or width to build a stable wall - aithough I like to give it some. Go 10 miles from here into the Yorkshire dales and different techniques are used. The polychrome effect is because we got stone from 3 different heaps. I warned you - dont get me started.
