Project: Newark Tower, Bowhill.

Client: Buccleuch Building Services.

Don’t leave it too late. Falling masonry is always dangerous and puts us all at risk. A collapsed wall or stone structure is invariably more expensive to repair than one either maintained in-situ, or taken down and reassembled carefully. Shaped or worked stone may be damaged or destroyed in the event of collapse, and require complete replacement. There is often no record of how the original structure stood, and in some circumstances this can be very important. Don’t ignore the warning signs; movements or cracks you haven‘t noticed before, bellied walls or structural deformation, or perhaps small pieces of building debris lying at the foot of a wall or in the fireplace. A cubic meter of stone typically weighs more than two and a half tons, that is, two and a half tons, at rest, and already on the ground.