Testimonials

The City of Kingston carried out a multi-year bridge construction project that included the temporary removal and realignment of a heritage dry stone wall along 60 Gore Road in Kingston Ontario. The work was subject to conditions stated in City of Kingston Heritage Permit P18-036-2019 including “The owner shall select a mason with experience in documenting, disassembling, repairing and reconstructing historic dry stone walls”.

The Project Team consulted with John Scott, Consulting Dry Stone Conservation Mason and Edgewater Stonemasons to develop an appropriate method to dismantle the wall in a manner that it could be rebuilt later on during the bridge construction phase. The wall dismantling process and work occurred in early 2021 and was summarized in a March 17, 2021 Phase 1 Wall Recording and Dismantling Report. This Phase 1 report included existing state of the wall, the condition of the stones and quantities, building of a temporary cheekend, and history of dry stone walls.

For the rebuild Phase 2, the dry stone team were consulted in 2023 to determine the appropriate manner to rebuild the wall and prepare a rebuild strategy since the purchase of new stones were needed and to select the appropriate rebuild methodology. The rebuild occurred in June 2023 in its new location parallel to Gore Road and ultimately met the requirements of the Heritage Permit. The dry stone team met the City of Kingston’s purchasing requirements such as proposal preparations, billing, and carrying out the work in the time required.

The dry stone team were very approachable and shared their knowledge during both phases of the work. The rebuild of the heritage wall was well received by the area residents and the district councillor.

The team from Dry Stone Canada Historic Conservation was wonderful to work with on the historic dry stone wall at the Little Dutch Church National Historic Site of Canada in Halifax. They were organized, knowledgeable, skilled and collaborative. And, importantly for work on this 270-year-old wall, they were very familiar with the Standards and Guidelines for the Conservation of Historic Sites in Canada, and with taking a conservation approach to projects. They fit in seamlessly with the consultant team, welcoming collaboration to meet conservation goals. The success of the team approach on this project owed a great deal to DSC Historic Conservation.

St. George’s Anglican Church in Halifax started working with Dry Stone Canada in the fall of 2021; Parks Canada had given us a lead to the newly created dry stone wall co-operative when we enquired about the restoration of our 250 + year old dry stone walls bordering the cemetery of the Little Dutch (Deutsch) Church National Historic site, dating back to the 1750s.

This was the start of a very successful two year collaboration between DSC, local Halifax architects, an archaeologist, a conservator, and St. George’s.

DSC’s past experiences helped with the preparation of our grant proposal to the National Cost-Sharing program with Parks Canada; their extensive dry stone wall expertise as well as their experience working heritage sites, helped us secure this major grant. This got the funding ball rolling.

The restoration work happened over two summers, 2022 and 2023. In all aspects of working with DSC, we had nothing but good experiences, from their attention and careful managing of the myriad of details necessary to plan and run the project smoothly, to their professionalism, and to their commitment to the success of this major project. We now have dry stone walls good for at least another 250 years! A big thank you to John Scott and his wonderful team at DSC without whom our major restoration project might not have happened. DSC co-operative has proven itself capable of solid work and leadership on heritage conservation projects. We wish them well in all future endeavours.