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A retaining wall is designed to hold in place a mass of earth or the like, such as the edge of a terrace or excavation. The structure is constructed to resist the lateral pressure of soil when there is a desired change in ground elevation that exceeds the angle of repose of the soil. [1]
Crinkle crankle wall in Bramfield, Suffolk. A crinkle crankle wall, also known as a crinkum crankum, sinusoidal, serpentine, ribbon or wavy wall, is an unusual type of structural or garden wall built in a serpentine shape with alternating curves, originally used in Ancient Egypt, but also typically found in Suffolk in England.
Bastion. A bastion or bulwark is a structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, [1] most commonly angular in shape and positioned at the corners of the fort. The fully developed bastion consists of two faces and two flanks, with fire from the flanks being able to protect the curtain wall and the adjacent bastions. [2]
Moat. A moat is a deep, broad ditch dug around a castle, fortification, building, or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. Moats can be dry or filled with water. In some places, moats evolved into more extensive water defences, including natural or artificial lakes, dams and sluices.
Dry stone, sometimes called drystack or, in Scotland, drystane, is a building method by which structures are constructed from stones without any mortar to bind them together. [ 1 ] A certain amount of binding is obtained through the use of carefully selected interlocking stones. Dry stone construction is best known in the context of stone walls ...
A gabion wall is a retaining wall made of stacked stone-filled gabions tied together with wire. Gabion walls are usually battered (angled back towards the slope), or stepped back with the slope, rather than stacked vertically. The life expectancy of gabions depends on the lifespan of the wire, not on the contents of the basket.
Typically in the form of a horizontal wire or rod, or a helical anchor, a tieback is commonly used along with other retaining systems (e.g. soldier piles, sheet piles, secant and tangent walls) to provide additional stability to cantilevered retaining walls. [1]
An embankment is a raised wall, bank or mound made of earth or stones, that are used to hold back water or carry a roadway. A road, railway line, or canal is normally raised onto an embankment made of compacted soil (typically clay or rock-based) to avoid a change in level required by the terrain, the alternatives being either to have an ...