Danville Project

In 2001 I was lucky enough to be asked to be part of a training project in Kentucky USA with two other master craftsmen - David Sinclair and Neil Rippingale.

The Danville Project involved the rebuilding of 1600ft of Rock Fence or Dry Stone Wall adjoining the Allen Curve just outside Danville. This was a special project in two ways. We were training a group of 25 people to rebuild this rock fence from scratch, most of whom had no experience of working with stone. They were taught how to sort and prepare the stone, integrating newly quarried stone with old historic stone into the building of the new Rock Fence.

The Allen Curve is so named because on the said curve is a quarry owned by the Allen family. This quarry was going to be one of the main factors of this project. Mr Allen was going to try and perfect a means of blasting or lifting the stone to a workable size, not in lumps the size of a fridge or blasted into small pieces. This technique had not been tried in the US before.

It was important to get this process to work as it was a trial run in preparation for building a further project planned for near the town of Paris in Fayette County.

The Allen Curve project worked well - a lot was learned by everyone.

This project was put together by Jane Wooley from the Dry Stone Conservancy.