Glendale Gardens Seminars
During the last half of October 2007, the DSWAC was invited to
Glendale Gardens to help run some more dry stone walling workshops in
British Columbia on Vancouver Island. These two day workshops were
very well attended and produced some wonderful new stone walls which
are situated near the enclosed Japanese garden and nearby, to the
south of vegetable garden. The students learned how to build with
dump loads of local random blasted rock (mostly boulders) as well as
stack flatter gneiss rock, which is much more expensive and comes
delivered on pallets.
The first class of students worked blissfully through extended
periods of drizzle, as they got the hang of fitting large odd shaped
rocks with the bulk of their mass into the wall, all the time taking
care to maintain the batter of the wall.
The second class continued in much better weather, extending another
straight section of wall along the lane, placing some massive coping
stones onto the top, to finish 28 feet of new wall in 2 days., Much
of the hearting material had to be made on site by breaking up larger
chunks of rubble. This was done every day for the students by Chris
and Rolph and Francis who were volunteering their time.
The advanced class, mostly full-time students at the Horticultural
Centre of the Pacific , learned some principles of dry laid vaulting
as they completed the first half of a circular garden feature
incorporating two gothic arches.
This unique structure, which creates the impression of being part of
some larger ancient ruin, was co-designed by Robin Burton and John
Shaw-Rimmington. Special thanks to Chris Barclay for giving up his
whole week to help move and shape stone and to Dean Rebneris for
being the catalyst for this western Canada DSWAC venue, for providing
accommodation and for continuing to cultivate interest in dry stone
walling here in BC.
