BCD 2017

T H E B U I L D I N G C O N S E R VAT I O N D I R E C T O R Y 2 0 1 7 107 MASONRY 3.2 council which has many years’ experience in the land-based and environmental sector. Lantra gave the DSWA’s existing certification system nationally accredited status in 2003. Over 250 students take one or more of these qualifications each year. The Craftsman Certification Scheme has four levels of qualification, each one requiring the waller to have a greater understanding of the craft and the materials being used. All tests are of a practical nature and most are carried out within a given time period in the presence of an examiner. Those who achieve the status of Mastercraftsman are then eligible to apply to become a qualified examiner. This follows a probationary period and a full assessment of their skills as an examiner during a formal evaluation session under real test conditions. There are currently 29 Mastercraftsmen and women who are qualified to be examiners, most of them based in the UK. IS THERE A SHORTAGE OF SKILLED WALLERS? In England and Wales Lantra provides a modern apprenticeship which allows employees the opportunity to get hands-on experience through a partnership between the apprentice, employer and training provider and leads to a recognised qualification. This is mainly targeted at 16–19 year olds with a lower level of funding available for students aged 20–24. However, within the environmental sector, this has had very little impact on the provision of qualified wallers continuing to practise their craft at a professional level. In Scotland there are currently no colleges providing dry stone walling training leading to a recognised qualification, although a new modern apprenticeship has been launched this year which incorporates a module in dry stone walling. A few years ago the DSWA became sufficiently concerned about the lack of new recruits entering the craft that it made a concerted effort to seek funding for a scheme to boost the training of young people keen to get on the ladder. The Heritage Lottery Fund agreed to support a bursary scheme in 2015 which allowed five trainees aged 19–32 to be placed with experienced working wallers in the north west of England for a period of 18 months. During this time the trainees have received intensive walling training as well as training in a range of other areas including business management, health and safety, and first aid. The aim is to train this group so that they will have gained their Level 3 certificate at the end of the training period. The project is on course at the moment and, if successful, DSWA believes it could be rolled out elsewhere in the country. In previous years, ever since it was recognised that these craft skills might eventually disappear, there have been occasional short-term apprenticeship schemes, usually for a year or less and for only one or two participants. Most of these schemes foundered because of the cost, in time and money, to the placement providers. The present HLF scheme costs the experienced wallers little or nothing, and the employer may benefit by gaining a fully trained waller who wishes to work with them beyond the period of the project. Unlike in other construction trades, most of those who take up walling as a professional job are somewhat older. Consequently, another scheme run by the DSWA and supported by the Prince’s Countryside Fund, targets people up to the age of 40, who are employed or training in rural activities. This scheme offers funding towards an initial training course and a contribution towards the cost of a Level 1 certification test. This has already been taken up by 150 young people around the UK. The DSWA is also lucky to have had two or three young wallers, who have made great progress to high skill levels, act as young ambassadors for the craft. Two of them have recently been awarded the DSWA’s Pinnacle Award for outstanding craftsmanship for a dry stone, corbelled roof building (see page 106). It is hoped that this will encourage further young people to see the craft as a worthwhile and rewarding career path. WIDER RECOGNITION OF THE CRAFT Although dry stone wallers are sometimes employed by mainstream construction contractors, for example to provide boundary walls for new housing estates or feature walls in new commercial developments, the knowledge and capabilities of such wallers are not well known. This has resulted in a knowledge deficit, mainly through lack of awareness and appropriate training, among architects and civil engineers who do not know how to specify dry stone walling features. Wallers are often presented with specifications for a construction project where the architect or engineer has specified a dry stone wall to be built on a concrete foundation and against reinforced blockwork, when these are clearly not needed. Experienced dry stone wallers are usually not consulted beforehand, possibly because planners do not know who to consult. DSWA is now trying to address this by developing a series of online documents to promote better understanding of dry stone walling among construction industry personnel of all levels. A corollary to this is the use of inappropriately skilled workers to build large areas of walling on major publicly funded projects, such as alongside motorways and bypasses. DSWA has experience of several past and ongoing projects where many kilometres of walls and dykes have been built to a standard which would disgrace someone with even one week’s properly instructed training. Compare these two images: one from a current publicly funded roads project (above left) and the other from one of the bursary HLF trainees after a few weeks’ experience (above right). The industry experts usually only get called in after these projects have been finished. Although those commissioning such work do sometimes consult with and receive advice from DSWA before undertaking such large projects, the image demonstrates that unless this work is properly funded and supervised sub-standard work is still being accepted at public expense. Many sections of this wall will no doubt have fallen down by the time you read this article. A REWARDING CAREER Dry stone walling is a historical traditional craft which has done much to enhance and define the landscape of Britain. There are around 200,000 kilometres of dry stone walls and dykes stretching across the British landscape, much of it in need of repair. However, the funding for all those repairs is never going to be made available and, in all honesty, is probably not needed. Nevertheless, there are sufficient parts of the countryside where such structures do need to be kept in good order, including distinctive landscape features which will provide work for wallers for centuries to come. For other wallers, who wish to extend their skills into more distinctive architectural and even artistic features, the craft can offer a most rewarding and satisfying career alongside the other crafts and trades employed in the building conservation sector. There is a place for all levels of waller, male and female, young and old. It is worth remembering that no one stone is the same as any other and that every job is a new learning experience. RICHARD LOVE is a former physiologist and medical scientist, who became a professional dry stone waller in 1995. He was chairman of the Dry Stone Walling Association (DSWA) (see page 108) from 2004 to 2010 and is currently chairman of DSWA’s Craft Skills Group. He runs training courses for the DSWA and other organisations. Publicly funded road project (Photo: DSWAPL/S Denham) An HLF bursary trainee’s work (Photo: DSWAPL/A Shaw)