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Community landmark

Amherst Island Solar Alignment Pillar

A sinking pillar on a community landmark, dismantled to diagnose a bedrock shelf nobody had identified, then rebuilt on solid bearing with quarried stone chosen over scarce island stone.

Two large limestone blocks being set side by side on a course, a gloved hand at either end of the frame and the packed hearting visible in the joint between them.
Solar Alignment Legacy Site, Amherst IslandMadoc limestone going back on the course, 2024
Site
Solar Alignment Legacy Site, Amherst Island
Location
Loyalist Township, Ontario
Client
Loyalist Township
Year
2024
Stone
Quarried dolomitic limestone, Madoc, Ontario
Scope
One pillar — full dismantle and foundation rebuild
All projects

The site

A solar alignment, built by hand in 2015

In 2015 Dry Stone Canada held a festival on Amherst Island. The feature build was a solar alignment: a wall pierced by a Celtic cross, through which the sun’s rays fall onto a receiving wall and the carved marker set in it. Four pillars stand between the two walls, two on either side of the beam, each carrying a seat cantilevered into the stonework.

The ground belongs to Loyalist Township and the site is open to the lake and to anyone who walks up to it. Islanders and visitors use it year-round, which is why a pillar that has begun to move is not something to watch and wait on.

This is not a designated heritage property and we do not present it as one. It is a landmark a community uses, built by hand, with a fault underneath it that nobody had found.

Four of the crew standing and talking on the grass at the solar alignment site, a dry stone wall at the left of the frame, a pillar at the right and the lake behind them.
The site, looking out to the lake

Diagnosis

One pillar was sinking, and nobody knew why

Over time one of the four pillars began to shift and settle into the ground. A fault in its foundation was suspected, and the pillar was cordoned off. In September 2024 the township asked us to make the repair.

Four wallers took the pillar down, stone by stone, and excavated beneath it. The cause was plain as soon as the ground was open: the bedrock has a shelf, and the pillar had been built across it. Part of the base stood on rock. The rest stood on a mix of gravel and clay — and that is the part that had moved.

  • A waller in a hi-vis vest lifting a stone clear of the part-dismantled pillar, a barn and grain silo in the field behind him.
    Taking the pillar down
  • Two of the crew digging out the ground beneath the dismantled pillar with a long-handled spade, a wheelbarrow of excavated material beside them.
    Excavating the old foundation
  • A gloved hand holding a steel tape measure upright in the open excavation, the blade running down past loose stone to the bottom of the hole.
    Measuring down to bedrock

The record

Measured coming down, measured going back up

The pillar
MeasureImperialMetric
Height, including copes79 in2.01 m
Height, below copes68 in1.73 m
Width at base50 × 39 in1.27 × 0.99 m
Width at top, below copes41 × 18 in1.04 × 0.46 m
The new foundation
MeasureImperialMetric
Excavated to bedrock12 in0.30 m
Solid stone laid on the bedrock8 in0.20 m
Foundation course tops out below grade4 in0.10 m

Fewer stones went into the base than came out of it, because the ones that went back were larger. That is the difference between rebuilding a structure and reproducing it: what you can see is unchanged, and what it stands on is not.

Method

Rebuilt on rock, course by course

The gravel and clay were taken out until the whole footprint stood on bedrock. Large stones were set directly on the rock to level the footing and give the pillar solid bearing across its full base, and it went back up course by course — larger stones low, the cantilevered seat set deeper into the structure than it had been before.

The pillar looks as it did. What changed is underneath it.

  • A timber batter frame standing over the cleared pillar footprint in low evening light, the dismantled stone laid out in rows on the grass and two of the standing pillars behind it.
    The batter frame, set to the pillar’s own taper
  • A large flat foundation stone rigged with chains beneath the bucket of a compact tractor, on the grass beside the open excavation.
    Foundation stone brought to the hole
  • Three of the crew crouched at the pillar footprint, running a long steel straightedge across the newly set foundation stones.
    Levelling the new footing

Material

Why the stone came from Madoc

The pillars were built, and were repaired, in quarried dolomitic limestone from Madoc, Ontario. Island stone was considered and ruled out. It is a scarce resource on Amherst Island; gathering shore stone is discouraged because of its cultural value; and in the island’s protected habitat areas it is restricted outright.

Bringing stone onto an island that looks as though it is made of the stuff needs a reason. The reason is that the stone lying on the shore is not spare.

Stone from the dismantled pillar laid out in rows on the grass, kept in order, with the coursed face of one of the standing pillars at the right of the frame.
Madoc limestone from the 2015 build, laid out to go back

Crew

Who was on site

Four wallers and site support, working for Loyalist Township in September 2024.

Menno Braam
Site lead
Scott Young
Waller
Andrew Pritchard
Waller
Lief Roebuck
Waller
Jacqueline Jeffers
Site support
Four wallers standing at the finished pillar, one hand resting on its capstone, the coursing and the taper of the rebuilt structure running down to the grass.
The rebuilt pillar, September 2024

Talk to us about a site

Tell us about your project and we'll get back to you — with what we see, and whether it needs rebuilding, repointing or simply monitoring.

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