The Stone Trust

In 2010, The Stone Trust was founded as a registered nonprofit organization. As the Stone Trust founder and president from 2010-2014, Jared Flynn helps facilitate their mission to preserve and advance the art and craft of Dry Stone walling. The Stone Trust provides education, training, and consulting services and advocates for the preservation of existing dry stone walls and structures. Its curriculum incorporates the global industry standards developed by the Dry Stone Walling Association (DSWA) of Great Britain to promote the correct structural standards for the construction and restoration of dry stone walls.

With a shared mission of historic preservation education, Flynn worked with the Landmark Trust USA to restore and reuse their 1862 Scott Farm cow barn into The Stone Trust Center. Flynn designed and built the first Dry Stone Walling Education Center in North America to facilitate all levels of DSWA certification tests and provide educational opportunities for homeowners, contractors, designers, and government agencies. The Stone Trust Center is open to the public year round and offers over 7000 feet of the greatest collection of dry stack walling fences in North America.

In 2011, Flynn worked with the Dry Stone Walling Association to help advance education in the craft and heritage of dry stone walling for the public benefit by organizing their DSWA Instructors Training Course here in North America. The two-day course offers Instructor Certification for professional wallers who hold a DSWA intermediate level 2 certificate or above. The Stone Trust continually offers this course bi-annially and in 2022 there are over 60 Certified Instructors in 10 different states that serve as ambassadors to the craft at 5 Stone Trust training sites in Tennessee, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and New York.

As a DSWA-certified instructor, Flynn designed 10 Stone Trust Historic Preservation workshops on the Landmark Trust Dutton Farm House Wall. The five-year project supported new instructor training and provided hundreds of dry stone enthusiasts with the basic structural techniques involved in the construction of a 900-foot freestanding farm wall. While Fulfilling the Stone Trust mission and financially supporting the evolution of the organization it proved rebuilding new workshop sites every few months was unsustainable.

In 2015 Flynn worked with Brian Post to develop a model for the Stone Trust educational workshop curriculum. Together they designed and built the infrastructure for the Stone Wall Park where the workshop curriculum was developed to maximize the teaching and learning experience in a safe controlled environment.

600 feet of wall provides workshop stations for all levels of ability to practice and learn while testing stations support professional wallers working on their DSWA Certifications. The Stone Trust model for dry stone wall education supports the DSWA and professional wallers and the development of educational opportunities in their communities.

The Stone Wall Park displays the most extensive collection of dry stone fences in North America. All examples of the dry stone features can be seen throughout New England’s landscape and connects us to our agriculture history. The Stone Trust is excited to be sharing a mission of historic preservation education with the Landmark Trust and Scott Farm and looks forward to offering economic diversity through agrotourism at the farm.