BND1Maintain dry stone walls

What it actually is

A payment for keeping dry stone walls as dry stone walls. The wall has to qualify first: a vertical structure of natural stone in traditional dry stone construction, mortar allowed only where it is part of the traditional local method, at least 20 metres long, and in good condition, meaning continuous, without gaps except built features like stiles and sheep creeps, and complete to proper height with the top stones in place in the local style. The work is then a cycle: visually inspect every wall at least once a year, identify what needs repair, and complete those repairs within 12 months, or by the action's end date where the need is identified in the final year, in materials matching the local style, keeping the existing features, the top stones, sheep creeps, stiles and stone gate posts, as they are. GOV.UK's stated aim is walls maintained in good condition, managing livestock, providing wildlife habitat, and holding the landscape and historic character they carry.

Source: GOV.UK, BND1 action page, checked 23/08/2026.

What it pays, and what that comes to

The rate is in the panel at the top of this page, per 100 metres of wall, covering both sides. Multiplied out:

Source: arithmetic on the payment rate shown at the top of this page, which comes from Tilth's copy of the GOV.UK action catalogue and carries its own last-checked date. The lengths are illustrations.

Is it worth it on your ground?

Step one: what qualifies. Only walls already in good condition enter. A gapped or slumped wall is not eligible until it is repaired, and this action does not pay for that restoration; the capital grant schemes are where rebuild money lives.

Step two: what it asks each year. The walk, the notes, and whatever repairs the year produces. On sound walls in sheltered ground that is a day with a notebook and the odd top stone. On exposed walls with stock leaning through them, a season's frost can produce repair work whose cost in walling time dwarfs the payment, and the repair obligation binds for whatever the inspection finds.

Step three: where that leaves it. For walls you were maintaining anyway, this is payment for the habit plus the discipline of writing it down. The judgement to make before entering is about the walls themselves: the length you enter is the length you are promising to keep in good condition for three years, at your own cost, whatever the winters do. Walk the doubtful lengths before the application, not after.

Source: eligibility and requirements from GOV.UK, BND1 action page, checked 23/08/2026. The judgements are Tilth's own reading rather than scheme guidance.

Does it work, and what makes it work better

This section is what we have found in published sources about the practice this action pays for. It is not scheme guidance, it is not Defra's or the RPA's view, and it adds no requirement beyond what the GOV.UK action page sets out.

The short honest answer: Conservation Evidence assess restoring or maintaining dry stone walls and have captured no evidence at all, no studies quantitatively testing the practice's effects on farmland wildlife, so they are unable to assess whether it is effective or has any harmful impacts. That is a statement about what has been measured, not about walls. The habitat case GOV.UK gives, and the livestock and landscape cases, rest on the plain function of the thing rather than on scored field studies, and the historic character of a wall is not the kind of claim that needs a trial.

Source: Conservation Evidence, action 74, Restore or maintain dry stone walls, Farmland Conservation synopsis, checked 23/08/2026. Cite as Dicks et al. (2020), Farmland Conservation, pages 283 to 321, in What Works in Conservation 2020, Open Book Publishers. The closing sentence is Tilth's own reading.

What you actually have to do

Inspect the condition of every entered wall visually at least once a year and identify any sections needing repair. Complete identified repairs within 12 months of identifying the need, or by this action's end date if the need is identified during the final year, using materials that match the local style and characteristics. Retain the existing features: top stones, sheep creeps, stiles, stone gate posts. Keep written or photographic records of the inspections and the repairs, with dates. Hold management control of both sides of the entire length for the full three years. Static, same walls throughout.

Source: GOV.UK, BND1 action page, checked 23/08/2026.

Where it can go

Walls meeting the definition above, forming boundaries, at least 20 metres between endpoints, in good condition at entry, with both sides under your management control. In a land parcel with a boundary entered into BND1 you cannot also do BND2, CHRW2 or WBD2, on any boundary of that parcel. The exclusion is the whole parcel, not just the length of wall.

Source: GOV.UK, BND1 action page, checked 23/08/2026.

Things worth watching

This section is Tilth's own reading of where this action is easy to get wrong. It is not scheme guidance, it is not sourced from Defra or the RPA, and none of it adds a requirement beyond what the GOV.UK action page sets out.

Good condition is the entry ticket, and the promise. The wall must be continuous and complete on day one and stay that way, repairs inside 12 months of being identified. The identification is yours, on your own inspection, which makes the honest walk-round the load-bearing part of the whole action.

The 12 month repair clock starts when you notice. An inspection note that records a slumped section starts a clock. GOV.UK caps it at the action's end date where the need is identified in the final year, so a repair spotted in month 30 is due at month 36 rather than month 42. That is the right way round for the wall, and worth knowing before the notebook gets enthusiastic in a year the walling time is short.

Local style is a requirement, not a preference. Repairs in matching materials and style, features retained as they are. The corrugated sheet wedged in the gap fails twice: it is a gap in the eligibility sense, and it is not a repair in the local style sense.

Both sides, again. Management control of both sides for the full term, which on marches and moor edges is precisely where it gets interesting. The neighbour's side is the conversation to have before the application.

The exclusion runs to the whole parcel. Entering a wall into BND1 rules out BND2, CHRW2 and WBD2 on every boundary of that land parcel, not only on the length of wall. A parcel walled along the top and hedged along the low side gives up the hedge action to take the wall one, so the choice is made parcel by parcel rather than boundary by boundary.

Keeping the evidence

Also Tilth's own reading. GOV.UK sets the requirements; what follows is a practical suggestion about record keeping.

Unusually, the record keeping here is itself a requirement rather than just good practice: written or photographic records of inspections and repairs, with dates. A wall log does it: each wall's length, the date walked, what was found, what was fixed and when, with photographs before and after any repair. The annual walk and the log are the same job done once.

Source: record requirements, GOV.UK, BND1 action page, checked 23/08/2026. The suggestion is Tilth's own.

The part only your own ground can answer

Which lengths of wall you would promise three years of good condition for is a question answered on foot, wall by wall, before the form. The log the action requires is the same record Tilth keeps against the map, each wall drawn where it stands, with its dates and photographs pinned to it. Request an invite.