“Last week I was in Ilkley,” the waller tells me, “and had some lovely sandstone, but I’m making the best of this.”
The irregular fragments of limestone in the Greenfield Valley, Upper Wharfedale, don’t stack up as neat layers but there’s plenty of material available. Another waller is repairing a section and he simply digs up a piece he needs from the turf alongside the wall.
The hogget hole allows sheep to pass through. This one can be blocked by the slab lying beside the wall on the roadside verge. A hogget is a young sheep.