Stone Walls of Westport Once a farmer’s nuisance, mostly igneous fieldstones left over from the last ice age’s receding glaciers are now being used to produce some of the finest dry stone walls in New England. In the early years, Westport farmers pulled stones from their farm lands and created long piles of rubble into crude field barriers, fences, and farm animal enclosures. This practice has evolved over time into more formal property boundaries, and has become a signature of rural Westport.
The art of incorporating a fieldstone wall into a property’s
landscaping design is now popularly known as “hardscapes”. Early
English settlers arriving in Massachusetts in the 1600’s brought their
homeland’s wall building techniques with them. Arguably, the best talent
in dry fieldstone wall building comes from Great Britain. Later, wealthy American
farmers and industrialists rebuilt these early piles of rubble into more handsome
structures, becoming monuments in their own right. In the present day, the
art of wall building has changed into a highly evolved discipline, with skilled
craftsmen producing free-standing works of art. Stone
Wall Information |