Picture of the month

Comment:

Why select an apparently ordinary stretch of a stone wall to feature as Picture of the Month? Well, there is more to be seen than at first meets the eye. Beyond the foreground wall is the parish of Urswick, the almost entire solid geology of which is limestone. The field boundaries across that parish are delineated by either drystone walls constructed from limestone which has normally been quarried in relatively close proximity to where the walls were built, or the boundaries are hawthorn hedges growing on a stone and earth base. This use of local stone has resulted in what are now grassed-over hollows around the parish from where the limestone was quarried in modest amounts from each excavation. Limestone walls and hawthorn hedges are readily seen in this picture beyond the foreground wall. This wall, it will be seen, is constructed, not from quarried limestone but predominantly from rounded boulders which were taken from the land after being left by the glaciers which both ground them round when moving and deposited them when the glaciers stalled and melted. These boulders have travelled some distance after being picked by the glaciers from different rock types remote from the local limestone. As well as telling a geological story the picture also tells an economic one. The glaciers did not stop where the foreground wall is but also spread the same boulder types across Urswick Parish. It must therefore have been the case that the combined effort of locally quarrying the limestone and constructing walls from quarried material was easier and therefore more economical than collecting sufficient glacial boulders and using them to construct the walls. The differing quality of the resulting walls may have also been a factor.