Every year I go north to visit family in Rhode Island. Every year I get a bit obsessed with the wealth of stone found in New England. Here are a few photos from my most recent trip, in November 2007.

A disclaimer: none of the work shown on this page was done by the Unturned Stone. I have added it to the site because it has something to offer people who enjoy and appreciate the craft. I do not intend to take any credit away from the people who built these structures. If you have any info that can help me credit the craftspeople, please contact me at marc (at) unturned (dot) net.

Chase Hill Road winds through Ashaway, Rhode Island, not far from Westerly and its once famous granite quarries. On my most recent visit to see family, a couple of people suggested I take a drive down Chase Hill to see the stone walls built there. Recent additions to Rhode Island’s long tradition of stone work, the walls that line the road are impressive structures. I would guess there’s three miles of newly built, dry-stacked fieldstone walls. They stand about three feet tall and are about three feet wide across the top. There’s not a drop of mortar or cement to be found.

The story of their construction is not clear. One person told me that members of the Narragansett Tribe, the area’s longest standing residents, built the walls alongside recent immigrants from Central America. The Narragansett are well known for their stone building acumen. Someone else told me that the man who owns most of Chase Hill, a successful businessman, built the walls with his son. I like both stories.

The tree circle shown above is probably my favorite detail. The walls stop and start quite a bit, as they reach driveways, roads and other obstacles. In many places they ended the walls with gigantic boulders. In a few places, the walls widen at the terminus, up to five feet across.

I pieced together a photo montage of a long stretch of the wall

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. The image is huge and may take some time to download, but it’s worth the wait. You’ll have to scroll sideways to see the whole thing. Notice the chinking.

Chase Hill has another masonry treasure, one unlike anything I’ve ever seen. This arch, and a couple more built in a similar style, is suspended on the leaf springs from an old truck. I wouldn’t suggest this approach, though these walls have been around for quite a while.

This is a close up of the arch shown above, a mortared structure that leads into the courtyard of a now defunct Italian restaurant in Westerly. I like the contrast of thin stones (presumably shale or slate) and bigger chunks of hewn granite.

This wall is still under construction opposite the sea wall in Narragansett, as part of the design for a new high-end condo development. The mosaic is lovely and tells some of the local history. In this scene, an early settler is trading wampum- polished quahog shells- with a woman from the Narragansett Tribe.

The stonework is a little suspect. Most of the joints are running and many of the stones are stood up on edge- not laid in the bedded plane. I couldn’t get close enough to see how the stones above the mosaic, which is recessed into the wall, are being held in place against their will. This wall will feel the brunt of noreasters and hurricanes that jump the sea wall.