Foster Preservation Society

Saving Stone Walls

The Society has addressed this issue in the past when advertisements began to appear in the Bargain Buyer and post cards in mailboxes, asking property owners to sell their old stone walls. We wrote letters to the Conservation Commission and the Town Council with little result except agreement with our concerns. No official action was taken.

On March 13, 2007, the Preservation Society was invited to join the Foster Conservation Commission in a regional program hosted by the Scituate Conservation Commission. University of Connecticut Professor of geology, Robert Thorson, spoke about the loss of New England stone walls and signed his book Stone by Stone: The Magnificent History in New England's Stone Walls.

In the August 5, 2007, an article entitled "N.E.'s stout stone walls no match for thieves" appeared in The Providence Journal, The Boston Globe, and other New England newspapers.  We have placed it on our website to emphasize the importance of this issue. We have been researching information to learn how other communities are attempting to save their endangered walls. The following  links are useful:

Stone Wall Initiative at UCONN

Town of Smithfield Ordinance

(scroll down to section 305 - Stone Wall Protection and Preservation)

Stone Wall Preservation in the UK:  Department of Environment, Food & Rural Affairs