When is a wall not a wall?
By Fleur
@Fleura (32020)
United Kingdom
April 30, 2025 9:00am CST
To me, a wall is a self-supporting boundary built of some solid material such as bricks, stones or concrete blocks.
If a continuous boundary is created from living bushes or trees, that’s a hedge (if it isn’t continuous then it’s just a row of trees or bushes).
If it’s made from other materials such as wood palings, trellis, pickets, or wooden posts with wire mesh or barbed wire, that’s a fence.
So the term ‘stone fence’ has always puzzled me.
If it’s made of stone, it ought to be a wall, so is a ‘stone fence’ just a wall by another name?
But then, not long ago, in a little village, I did actually come across something I considered fitted the bill. This boundary is made of stone, but it could hardly be called a wall in the usual sense.
Have you seen anything like this, and what would you call it?
All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2025.
9 people like this
9 responses
@BarBaraPrz (49980)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
30 Apr
I hope those slabs are securely fastened... wouldn't want one to fall on some unassuming critter or other and squish them.
But it is certainly interesting... fence, I guess, as I don't see a ceiling.
1 person likes this
@BarBaraPrz (49980)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
30 Apr
@Fleura I think so... don't your walls have a ceiling? 

1 person likes this
@Fleura (32020)
• United Kingdom
30 Apr
@BarBaraPrz not unless they are the walls of a house... and then it's the room that has a ceiling, not the walls.
1 person likes this

@changjiangzhibin89 (16988)
• China
7 May
Not sure if it can be called enclosure or enclosing wall.
1 person likes this
@LindaOHio (194083)
• United States
1 May
I think it's a fence. Without the metal supports, I guess you could call it a wall.
1 person likes this
@Deepizzaguy (111701)
• Lake Charles, Louisiana
30 Apr
I do remember playing a Tiger Woods golf game on a Nintendo Wii game where the game was played in a golf course in Scotland where a wall that looked like the wall that was seen n this post in an animated setting.
1 person likes this
