Expert's work at historic garden

A HISTORIC garden feature by legendary 18th century landscape designer Capability Brown is being restored by a talented young dry stone waller.

- OWEN HUGHES

Barney Murray, from Llandyrnog, Denbighshire, whose impressive CV includes working at King Charles’ country residence at Highgrove, has begun work on a ha-ha, a sunken stone wall at Wynnstay Hall, the historic home of the Williams-Wynn family near Ruabon.

Barney, 26, said: "Restoring a Capability Brown ha-ha is probably a once in a lifetime job. It's been here for more than 200 years and hopefully I'm going to make sure it’s here for another 200 years. The ha-ha was built to prevent animals like deer and sheep getting into the shrubbery and eating everything and it extends around it for several hundred yards, all in stone, with no mortar.

"I’m not rebuilding it the way I would build it - I'm doing it the way those 18th century stonemasons would have done it.”

It's been a whirlwind 18 months for Barney who recently built a dry stone wall on an Outer Hebrides island.