Stone Walls of Westport

Once a farmer’s nuisance, mostly igneous fieldstones left over from the last ice age’s receding glaciers are now being used to produce some of the finest dry stone walls in New England. In the early years, Westport farmers pulled stones from their farm lands and created long piles of rubble into crude field barriers, fences, and farm animal enclosures. This practice has evolved over time into more formal property boundaries, and has become a signature of rural Westport.

The art of incorporating a fieldstone wall into a property’s landscaping design is now popularly known as “hardscapes”. Early English settlers arriving in Massachusetts in the 1600’s brought their homeland’s wall building techniques with them. Arguably, the best talent in dry fieldstone wall building comes from Great Britain. Later, wealthy American farmers and industrialists rebuilt these early piles of rubble into more handsome structures, becoming monuments in their own right. In the present day, the art of wall building has changed into a highly evolved discipline, with skilled craftsmen producing free-standing works of art. Stone Wall Information

Encountering a 200 year-old abandoned fieldstone wall enveloped by secondary forest can evoke nostalgia of times gone by. Our early cultural heritage is on display for all those to see. This photo essay is an attempt to illustrate the beauty of today’s “hardscapes”, as well as show some of the early examples of 18th and 19th century fieldstone walls still visible in modern Westport.

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