Stone mason question

Deedsie

Bought a house coming on 3 years ago. Been working on making the garden more manageable in that time. Have removed tonnes of limestone rock border from various rock walls, raised flower beds and borders etc. There is now a huge amount of this natural limestone rock piled up in a corner of the garden. None of it is square, all totally different varieties of shapes and sizes. My question is, we are considering replacing a section of the wooden fence with a wall and two pillars to hang the gate from as a driveway entrance. Could this stone be used to make a limestone wall and pillars? Would having the stone in place save us any money at all or is it a pointless (like the stone) idea that isn't worth wasting my time pursuing? And should I start to look for ways to dispose of the mounds of stone?

I'm totally ignorant on stonemasonry so any guidance would be gratefully received. I attached an image of some stone in the garden. Only one on my phone. Will take a better pic tomorrow.

Thanks

Screenshot_20250505_234541_Photos.jpg

10-10-20

If I was a stone mason then I'd be happy to see stone such as that at the site. It can be faced off as needed. It's the local stone too so presumably you'll be using similar in any wall anyway?

Lumen

If you're on Facebook take some proper pics and post them on "stone masons ireland", you should get good feedback.

Is the stone from on site (i.e. field stone) or was it brought there for a previous job?

Deedsie

Thank you both for the replies, I am not on facebook but will look into Stone Masons Ireland. Thanks for that. The stone was brought to the site but is definitely stone from the local area. I took a few more pics today. Not great pics either. There is a lot of stone there. I dont think you get the scale from the pics. You will see this is kind of a dumping ground for rock, bricks and stone. Vast majority is limestone.

20250506_171254.jpg

20250506_171237.jpg

20250506_171302.jpg

20250506_171244.jpg

10-10-20

Mason's field-day!

CelticRambler

There'd be no problem using that stone for a new building project, but by the looks of it, you wouldn't have enough to build two pillars as well as a wall.

Walls take a surprising amount of stone, unless you use it only for dressing a wall made of some other material (e.g. plain concrete blocks), but in that case, you'll lose a fair bit of the decent stuff during the shaping process. Much the same for the pillars - you'll need four (maybe just three) good faces on each pillar, the cutting of which'll waste an awful lot of otherwise good stone.

I would use it for a single dramatic feature wall somewhere, or else as matching L-shaped walls on either side of wherever the gate is to go, and hang the gate on regular self-supported posts set up against the wall(s).

Deedsie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123424136#Comment_123424136

That's very interesting. Thank you. I'm glad I asked now as I wasn't sure whether it was of any use at all. There is actually quite a bit more stone dotted throughout the garden bordering three flower beds and along either side of the current driveway. So I can still add more to that pile. Still might not be enough but if needs be we could try source however much more was required for two pillars and two short walls leading out to the road.

This might never happen but I really like the idea of using the stone that's already there to do the job.

CelticRambler

I do love a good pile of stones ! Have built several dry stone walls around the property using material recovered from old walls and what must have been a pile of unused stone from when they built the barns. Mine is sandstone, but very similar in size and shape to what you've got.

The natural stone in the ground is some kind of metamorphic rock, impossible to drill into and impossible to shape, but it makes a decent filler between the two faces of a free-standing wall, and it's even better used behind the pretty face of a retaining wall, as it provides great drainage.

In the future, if you're tidying up the other piles, I'd recommend you do a rough sorting of what you've got - pieces with at least one decent flat side in one pile; irregular round-ish stones in another; and general rubble in a third. That way, it'll be much easier to know how much of the good stuff you really have to work with.