Crinkle Crankle Walls

Photo by Nat Bocking
Crinkle Crankle wall in Bramfield, Suffolk

One of the reasons I decided to start this blog was to collect all of the quirky British customs and put them in one place for other Anglophiles. The other reason is so I would have an excuse to learn more and more. This is exactly the kind of thing that delights me. There is nothing more heavenly than an English garden and I especially love walled gardens. I come from the land of the grid – Chicago. The entire city is laid out in a very logical, easy to understand grid. While it is easy and accessible, it lacks a certain charm. These walls are not only fun to look at, but economize on bricks because it can be made just one brick thin. Even though it is thin, it does not require a buttress, which it would if the curves didn’t offset each other! It’s really very useful and imaginative.

I adore the name, Crinkle Crankle but these are also known as crinkum crankum, serpentine, ribbon or wavy walls. The Crinkle Crankle name originated in the county Suffolk, which has at least 50 examples of this which is more than twice what the rest of the country has. None other than Thomas Jefferson thought the idea so good that he used it when designing the gardens at the University of Virginia, which he founded. A document at the university shows how he calculated the savings and combined aesthetics with utility.