Walls

The Plan: Get underneath without it falling down

· Ideally a 2-person job. A third person can't do much. It is really a manual job, but if a digger is on hand then a single scoop on each side of the wall speeds things up (not if the wall looks dodgy though) .

· Pick the place that looks the strongest having looked at both sides. A wall might be so unstable that it falls down on you, it usually makes a slight rumble before it collapses, have plenty of space round you and be ready to retreat at any moment. A wall may be so dodgy looking that you would have to take it all down and rebuild it without attempting to dig under. Rebuilding is a long job and also your efforts may not meet the farmer's standard, so some walls effectively become impassable and you have to find a different route.

· Dig two holes next to the wall exactly opposite each other. Partly dig one hole first to see if it looks promising before you start the second.

· Consider any height difference between the two sides. If it is too great you may need a digger machine to scoop down.

· Then expose the wall face below ground to see what you are up against.

One side may have a huge boulder, so you will have to start extending both holes to the side. Or there may be an obvious stone that can be prised out to begin a way through. Or with a newer wall you might get down below the wall into soil.

A lot of walls are the ‘2 walls leaning against each other with an infill of smaller stones’ variety. Parts of the infill will often trickle down as you work through. Digging through walls can be dangerous as you might on occasion have a whole arm inside a wall which you have just weakened.

You will need to get a piece of protective metal or alkathene through the wall. You may not be able to get as low as you want through the wall, in which case alkathene can be extended each side of the wall to gain depth.

The wall can be well over a metre thick at the base and could be two metres tall.

On tidying up you may have stones left over, usually infill, hide these away invisibly as they are a sign that you have left the wall weaker than it was.

If you are working on your own, every time you go around to the other side of the wall, leave your tools on top of the wall so they are available to you. It can be a long way round to the other side, try to get someone to help.

Tools: Spade, Iron Bar, Gloves maybe Pick, Trowel, Wire

There may be obvious places in a wall to consider for a crossing. So you delve down in the base of this sheep-hole and see. It is not necessarily a good way it can have a large slab at the base.

But if it looks an easy crossing, how far do you go off course to go off your direct line to take advantage of it? And if you change your route to this wall, does it affect where you would like to cross the next wall?