Family's kilometres of hand-built dry stone walls and gravity-defying structures a lasting legacy

Stone by stone, the Mulligan family are building their legacy.

Thousands of tonnes of dry stone walls in all shapes and sizes amble through expansive gardens and along vineyards at their St Mary’s property in Maaoupe, 60 kilometres north of Mount Gambier in South Australia.

St Mary’s features around two kilometres of dry stone walling.(ABC South East SA: Liz Rymill)

Barry, Glenys, and sons Robin and Ian say it is part passion, part pastime, part obsession.

From little things, big things grow

Like most women on the land, Glenys isn’t shy of getting her hands dirty.

But the award-winning gardener was the first in the family to see more than just rocks in the paddock when she and husband Barry began ripping a limestone ridge to develop their first vineyard in the mid-1980s.

Glenys Mulligan in her garden at St Mary’s where she began building some of the dry stone walls in the mid 1970s.(Supplied: St Mary’s Vineyard)

She saw the potential of the limestone to build walls and borders in her expanding garden and soon the first wall, on the southern side of the house, started to take shape.

“At first we thought we just had limestone and I started to experiment with it for walling,” she said.

“But as the quarry on the farm developed we found sandstone, and later a unique flaky sandstone which is ideal for walling and sculpture work.”

Today, St Mary’s Vineyard is believed to the only example of its kind in the country to feature dry stone walling using the particular sandstone unique to their land.

Dry stone sculptures at the entrance to St Mary’s.(ABC South East SA: Liz Rymill)

A family passion

The Mulligan family have all contributed to the walls, creating around two kilometres of dry stone walls and sculptures open to the public.

“We all have our own style,” explains Barry.

Barry Mulligan’s dry stone candle sculpture.(ABC South East SA: Liz Rymill)

“But the walls, from limestone to sandstone, all seem to blend in and complement each other.

“Part of what people see here was planned, part was a sort of evolution of what we’ve got, and as for the next part, well, we’re still realising what we’ve got.”

Barry Mulligan took on the family farm in the 1970s and with his family branched out to striking sandstone sculptures.(ABC South East SA: Liz Rymill)

Barry’s grandfather came out to the Maaoupe plains in the 1930s and saw potential in its rugged beauty.

“Back then it was just one, big, fenced paddock of mostly native scrub,” he said.

“In the mid 1970s I took on the property and we’ve retained about 300 to 400 acres [121 to 162 hectares] of pre-European native scrub, developing the remaining land for grazing, vineyards, and the quarry.”

As the family grew and sons Robin and Ian returned to the business, each developed a passion for using the stone to expand the dry stone walls.

They’ve added sculptural elements, gravity defying structures, and the centrepiece — a more than one-kilometre freestanding wall measuring around a metre wide and more than five foot high in sections.

It’s Robin Mulligan’s work, with each stone and boulder selected, carted, and laid by hand.

“There’s going to be walling purists out there that won’t agree with my methods, but they haven’t moved the rocks by hand like I have,” he says as he smiles.

“That’s just how I choose to do it.

“I put some guideposts and string line out and then get to work, it’s quite simple.

“I guess it’s become a bit of an obsession.”

Robin Mulligan has created kilometres of dry stone walls.(ABC South East SA: Liz Rymill)

A tree ring at St Mary’s.(ABC South East SA: Liz Rymill)

Robin moved back to St Mary’s in 2013 and started “playing around” with building smaller walls around the garden.

That progressed to walled tree rings and experimenting with arches and gravity defying structures in dry stone.

“I started as a complete novice, but there is a lot of opportunity for on-the-job learning,” he said.

“If you look at some of my earlier walls you can see the techniques have been refined over time.”

Building an enduring legacy

Robin said today the family looks at garden design involving walls and sculptures, rather than simply building walls to border sections of the garden.

He said each member of the family has their own style, with Barry and Ian enjoying using the versatile flaky sandstone for precise, yet strong, sculpture work.

Dry stone walling approximately a metre tall and 80cm wide.(ABC South East SA: Liz Rymill)

“With the stone that we’ve got it can be shaped, it’s got natural grip, it doesn’t slip, and if you know what you’re doing you can go vertical for three metres,” Robin said.

“And if I have a certain type of rock in mind, or something I need for a particular feature, I don’t stop until I find it.”

Barry and Robin Mulligan source particular “flat” sandstone from the family’s quarry.(ABC South East SA: Liz Rymill)

Robin Mulligan’s “gravity defying” lilmestone arch.(ABC South East SA: Liz Rymill)

With two generations of the Mulligan family building a lasting legacy in the ever-expanding walls of Saint Mary’s, Barry said it was satisfying to think that long after their time on the land has passed, the walls will remain.

“There is a satisfaction in being able to look around and see what we’ve done,” he said.

“Visitors respect the element of family here.

“People understand the story behind it and why we continue to do it.

“It’s part of our lives.”