Stonework in Avlaki, Corfu

Avlaki is terraced ground. The olive slopes above the bay are held by xerolithia, dry-stone walls laid without mortar, course on course, friction and gravity doing the work. We rebuild those terraces in local fieldstone: clearing the collapse, finding the lost line, relaying the face with a proper batter and long through-stones so it stands as it stood.

Dry-stone is the oldest building here and the least forgiving. There is no mortar to hide a bad joint, every stone has to bear on the one beneath it, the face has to lean back into the hill, and the hearting behind the face has to be packed tight rather than thrown in loose. A wall built that way drains itself, moves with the ground, and lasts generations. It is recognised UNESCO intangible heritage for good reason, and it is the discipline Avlaki's olive terraces were made with.

Rebuilding a terrace means working in local fieldstone, the same stone the original wallers pulled from the ground they were clearing. We follow the old footings where they survive, reuse every sound stone, and lay the rest by eye and by hand. The aim is not a new wall that looks old but the same wall, standing true again.

If your slope is slipping, a leaning or bulged terrace is usually telling you the hearting has washed out or the batter has been lost. That is a rebuild, not a patch, and it suits dry-stone, retaining and structural walling. Where a terrace must carry more than its own weight, we can build it as a mortar-bedded structural wall instead, but on olive ground the dry wall is almost always the right answer.