This weekend we teamed up with the Friends of the Pentlands and Youth Vision to provide a walling workshop at Youth Vision's facility near Harlaw in the Pentland Hills Regional Park. The walls here are the same as at other points around Harlaw (see numerous previous posts) - built quickly to a half-dry-half-mortared design which is prone to collapse in on itself. This, coupled with damage caused by people climbing over the collapsed sections of the wall, is what had happened at Youth Vision. The idea of the workshop was to provide an introduction to dry stone walling for anyone interested while also repairing the damaged walls.

We were originally expecting about ten people coming along to learn on the Friday but in the end we had only four novices: these, plus five members of the branch, four FotP and four Youth Vision people meant we had seventeen volunteers working on the repairs.

There were are few sections which needed work. Youth Vision had strimmed back the briars and nettles from one collapsed section, so we started on that while some of their people worked on clearing away the other places needing work.

The issue we so often find with these walls showed itself again: when we cleared down a collapsed section, the next bit of wall along started to come down as well. The whole thing really is very fragile.

Another issue we had was lack of stone: as these walls have been built with insufficient infill ("hearting", in dry stane dyking parlance) they are partly hollow, and so rebuilding them correctly requires additional stone. We were able to "borrow" some from other nearby collapsed areas, and when one of the rangers showed up with a pickup truck we were able to drive around the reservoir and pick up more which had been left over from previous repairs. However, by the time we knocked off for lunch (delicious soup provided by Youth Vision) we'd pretty much run out of useful stone.

Lunch was in the garden of Youth Vision's 18th century cottage, which was a ruin but which is now roofed over and provides a secure workshop and space to store their equipment as well as a kitchen. There was some stone in the area around the cottage which we were able to barrow down after lunch so we were able to continue working and by the end of the day we were pretty much up to sub-cope height.

On Saturday it was blowing a gale with the wind blowing grit and bits of moss off the wall and into our eyes. None of our trainees showed up but we still had five members (two new ones, and three that had been there the day before) plus two FotP and two Youth Vision people. Our friendly ranger showed up as well with another truckload of stone, and by the end of the morning we'd got the section of wall coped and finished.

After lunch we tackled another section of wall which had started to come down. This one wasn't so bad, and the lower courses were OK to leave as they were.

And by the end of the day, we'd got this up to sub-cope level as well.

Most of us couldn't make it along on the Sunday, but Astra and AJ volunteered to come back and put the copes on.

And here's proof both of the solidity of the wall and AJ's sense of balance.

There was another collapsed wall we'd been notified of by the Pentland rangers, a few miles up the road at Harperrig. I'd been hoping to get away to have a look at it myself on Friday or Saturday but in the event had been too busy, so Astra and AJ had very kindly agreed to take a look at it on Sunday. It's a more typical dry stone wall so it doesn't have the problems that the Harlaw walls have, but when they got there they found the wall much worse for wear than the photos had showed. The wall had slid in on the inside of the field area due to water table increases and a sloped stone that everything had been sat on, with the inside a full foot or so lower than the roadside, so they had some work to clear it all.

I've emailed the rangers to ask if we can get some more stone delivered to finish off the repair. We'll be back in the vicinity again in a month or so for another workshop with Youth Vision, so hopefully we'll get both jobs done then.

Yesterday we returned to Balgreen to repair a wall we originally built ten years ago (see blog post https://www.sesdswa.org.uk/blog/balgreen-seat). SGN had had to knock down the end of the wall to install a new pipe, and subsequently to this the remaining wall had been vandalised, with the top half of the wall pushed over.

I'd expected to find a pile of stone from the section which had been demolished by SGN, but this wasn't there (and in fact, thinking about it I do recall something about it being moved when the demolition happened last year). This meant that we were limited in what we could do by the stone that we had, so we decided to work along from the original end which was still standing, and just stop when we'd run out of stone.

And by lunchtime we'd got most of the wall back up to sub-cope height.

There still remained the cheek-end rebuild - we'd kept back some longish/squarish stone to do this.

And once that was done, all that was left to do was replace the copes. The Water of Leith people had given us some lime mortar to stick the copes on with - not 'dry', but necessary in an urban environment.

Lime mortar needs to be kept wet while it's drying (sounds odd, but it sets by a chemical reaction with the water - if it just dries out it goes crumbly). We'd been provided with a hessian sheet to soak and drape over the wall, but it was a bit short so we cut it into three, and managed to cover most of the wall.

The original plan had been to return the next day but the limited stone supply meant we got as much done as could be in one day, so we called off the return visit. And the forecast for the next day was light rain - perfect conditions for setting lime mortar, but maybe not so good for dyking.

Last weekend we (ably aided by some volunteers from the Friends of the Pentlands) returned to Harlaw to complete the work we'd started on the curved corner where the tree had taken the wall down (see posts below), and also to build up cheek-ends next to where a new self-closing gate had been installed. Saturday was dry and bright, if a tad chilly, and fortunately the build site was among trees so we were sheltered from the worst of the wind.

Before the gate had been put in there had been a squeeze style here, but it hadn't lasted. One cheek-end from it still remained, but it wasn't aligned with the new gate, so it needed to come down and be rebuilt.

The park rangers had left us a big pile of stone ...

... so we set about building up the new cheek-ends.

And by lunch time we'd got them both completed.

The rangers had also left us some more stone along near the unfinished curve (see previous posts) so after lunch a few of us went along to finish this off ...

... while the rest used some of the remaining stone at the new gate to tackle a section of collapsing wall nearby.

This was one of those places (all too common on the Harlaw walls) where once you start work, you quickly find the problem is worse than it initially appeared, and a lot more of the wall needs to come down before it can all be put back up again.

The stone which had been left for us at the curve proved adequate for the job, but most of the copes had been lost. Fortunately there were some in the stone stash along near the new gate, and once these were barrowed along (well done Sam) the repair could be completed.

By this point it was getting a bit late in the day, so we packed up and headed home.

Sunday wasn't such a nice day, but we didn't let that put us off, and once again helped by volunteers from the Friends of the Pentlands we picked up where the repair to the collapsed wall had been left the day before.

And by lunch time it was done.

By this time the rain had stopped, so we decided to tackle another collapsed section of the wall. Again, the repair turned out to be bigger than it initially appeared (the stones on the left of the gap just fell down as soon as they were touched), but it wasn't quite as bad as the previous section, as at least the lower sections of the wall were sound and level.

By mid-afternoon we'd got it all back up, and as the weather had turned a bit threatening again we decided to call it a day. There are plenty more collapsed sections of this wall, however, and there was still stone left from the lot the rangers had provided, so we'll be back again at some point.

Thanks to everyone who came along and helped out, and to Sam (as ever) for the photos.

Last weekend we ran the last of our 2025 beginners' courses in dry stone walling.
We got a great weekend for it (only a little rain on Saturday) and under Stevie's tutelage once again a great job was done.

Dates for 2026 courses will be on this site (under Training courses on the left) in January. Book early, as they tend to sell out!

Last weekend we returned to Harlaw to attempt to finish off the work we'd started on the two previous visits, the tree causing the problem at the corner (see post of 21st August below) having been cut down.
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We started at the section we left dismantled on the 24th of August, and we were happy to see that the site hadn't been touched since we were there last and that the stone was all still there. The day started out bright and sunny, but there were heavy showers forecast for the afternoon.

Looking at the end of the existing wall it's easy to see why it has collapsed in so many places. It's a mortared wall but has been built almost like dry stone - it has a double skin and it has throughs (long stones running right through the wall about half way up) at regular intervals. However, the hearting (the loose rubble within the wall) is inadequate, and the stone skins are traced (so, laid with the length running along the wall). It's like a half-dry-half-mortared method has been used to enable the wall to be built quickly and cheaply, rather than to a decent standard for either technique.

The first job was to get the foundations back in level.

This gave us a good flat base to work from, and we had enough decent stone to get the first few courses in pretty easily. And we had enough through stones - these probably being the only things that had kept the wall up for most of the hundred years or so since it was first built.

When we called it a day on Saturday we still had a foot or so to go before the copes could go on, and apart from a few stones which were too big to use as 'normal' builders and would need to go on as covers (stones running right through the wall just below the copes) we only had small stuff left. All was not lost, however, as one of the rangers had stopped off to mention that he'd dismantled a fire pit a bit further along, and knowing that we'd be coming had moved the stones up to beside the wall, instead of throwing them in the loch as he'd normally have done. There were a few other places we'd spotted stone near the wall, probably left over from previous repairs, so we were hopeful that we'd manage to scavenge enough to complete the job.

There had been a few showers during the day, none of which had come to anything much. But on the way back it came down hard just as we got past the shelter of the wood. We ran for cover, and managed to get in the lee of the visitor centre without getting too soaked.
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​On Sunday we met once again by the visitor centre, and filled up the wheelbarrow with the scavenged stone on the way along to the build site, which gave us enough to get started again.

We needed to make a few more trips with the barrow to get all the stone, and we managed to reclaim some more by improving a previous repair which had been done badly with a big field boulder we'd dug out - too big to use as a builder but a pretty good substitute for the stone which had been put in at the bad repair instead of copes.

Some of the smaller stuff was fine for just-sub-cope, where the weight of the copes would keep it in the wall, and by midday we were ready to put the copes back on.

When we knocked off for lunch the repair was complete, and we even had enough stone left over to take a barrowload along to the next section we were tackling, where the tree had been cut down.

The removal of the tree was good, but I'd failed to either mention to the rangers that it would be good if the woodsmen could remove the tree root in the wall as well as the tree, or to bring a saw so we could cut it out ourselves. After much bashing with the pinch bar and the big hammer, we managed to weaken it enough to twist it out.

Curved corners are the trickiest things to do in dry stone walling, I think (with the exception of special features like stairs or archways). This particular corner wasn't made any easier by the presence of a large fence post right inside the wall. We soldiered on, however, trying to keep the courses level and bring the batter (the slope of the sides) in as we went up.

Fortunately we again had enough through stones which we could use to strengthen the corner.

However, once again we also began to run out of stone just above through level. I suppose it shows how 'economical' the original build has been, that we only get half the wall built before we run out of material.

A quick measurement of the gap revealed we were short of a metre or so of copes as well, despite having found a few which looked like they'd been buried for some time. Faced with these challenges we decided to call it a day.

I've emailed the rangers to ask if we can get some more stone: there's another repair they want us to do, where they're going to replace a collapsed squeeze stile with a gate, so we might manage to reclaim enough stone from that to complete the corner. We usually stop work around this time of year - it was feeling distinctly autumnal on Sunday - but hopefully we'll fit another visit in to get the work completed before winter.
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Thanks to Sam for the photos, and to everyone who came along to help out with the build.

Last weekend we held another successful training course at our training centre at Merryhill in Fife.

Well done to all participants, and thanks to Stevie for leading the course - looks like you've all done a great job.

Today we returned to Harlaw (see pre-previous post) with the idea of completing the work we started last time. However, after a discussion with a couple of the rangers, who told us the problem tree was scheduled to be felled but hadn't yet been dealt with, we decided just to do some other repairs and complete the original work when the tree had gone. The walls at Harlaw have many places in need of attention, so we just picked the first couple we came to near the visitor centre where we'd met up.

The first gap wasn't very big, so it wasn't long before it was put right.

The second, however, was a bit bigger, and it initially looked like we'd be a bit short of stone for it, but somehow we had some left over from the first repair. I'm not quite sure how this happened - I can only assume that either we rebuilt the wall thinner than it previously had been, or that some additional stone had been dumped over the wall at the point of collapse. These walls were originally build with mortar, and they have lots of gaps in them, so it's normal for us to have a shortage of stone.

There wasn't really enough space for us all to work, so Jeff and Derek went a bit further along to where there was another small gap in need of rebuilding.

By lunchtime we'd got both these sections complete as well.

After lunch we again split into two groups. The next gap was about as big as the biggest of the morning ones, but the wall had collapsed right from very nearly the bottom of the wall.

We ran short of stone on this section as well, and had to resort to using very small stuff near the top. The copes are very tightly wedged in, which should help, but I think we may need to revisit this bit with some better stone for the top courses at some point.

A bit further down the from this was a big section which had come down. I remembered to take a couple of photos of what it looked like before we started on this one ... somewhere in amongst the nettles and bracken are the missing stones, we hope ...

Once we'd cleared away the undergrowth it was clear what the problem was here - the whole wall had fallen inwards and had shifted off it's foundations by about four inches.

The only solution here was to take the whole wall down and rebuild it from the bottom up.

We came across a couple of inhabitants of the wall while we were taking it down ...

Astra rescued them both and put them out of harm's way. They'll find plenty of good places to live once the wall been put back up dry.
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We ran out of time before we could start the rebuild - we'll be back in a couple of weeks to put it all back together.

Last weekend we went to the Peebles Agricultural Show, to provide a demonstration of dry stone walling. This year they gave us a pile of greywacke, the local whin stone. They'd put it in a corner between two tents, which was a good location as it was visible but not in anybody's way.

Greywacke is quite challenging to build with until you're used to it - it's very angular and irregular, and tends to shatter if you try to trim it with a hammer. They hadn't given us an awful lot of stone, so decided to build a short section of wall with only one complete cheek end, and with a cut-away at the other end showing the internal structure.

We got quite a lot of interest, and (for once) I didn't get a single farmer asking me if I'd like him to show me how to do it (I always answer yes, which only one has ever risen to, and after a few minutes he said "This is quite challenging stone" which I felt vindicated my work quite well).

We built the wall (as far as we could) in the local style, with a band of covers beneath the copes.

We'd used up pretty much all of the stone by lunchtime. I suggested taking it all down and building it back up again, but as this wasn't met with much enthusiasm we just left it was it was.

A couple of weekends ago (apologies for the delay in posting) we were back in the Pentland Hills Regional Park to repair some of the walls around the Harlaw reservoir.

We had run a training course for the Friends of the Pentlands earlier in the week, during which they had nearly completed a repair to the wall between Harlaw and the Threipmuir reservoir to the south, but had run out of stone to finish the job. The ranger service had since delivered more stone to the site, so we were able to complete the work.

This done we headed off round the reservoir to see if there were any other places in need of some attention. There were many - lots which just required a little work to stop them falling into further disrepair, but some which were in urgent need of rectification. It's a bit frustrating when you can see that a stone in time will save nine (to paraphrase the old aphorism) but don't have time to tackle all the work required. In the event we decided to work on two places a few yards apart where the wall had come down almost completely. At the first, it looked like a rogue tree had grown up near a corner, which had pushed out the foundations causing the wall to collapse.

And at the second it looked like people (or perhaps animals) had been using a gap as a gateway (though they might have regretted it, as there is a marsh on the far side of the wall).

Fortunately most of the stone seemed to still be there, if a bit buried, so once it had been dug out we were able to get on with the rebuilding work.

We managed to get the smaller gap, away from the corner, finished by mid-afternoon.

But having to deal with the tree roots (and the proximity of the barbed wire behind the wall) meant that we were unable to complete the corner. We've notified the rangers of the situation, and we'll be back to finish the job when they've decided what to do about the roots (either cut them, or we can build around them - or they might decide to remove the tree altogether).

Thanks to everyone who came along to help out, and to Sam for taking the photos.

We returned to Wooplaw on the first weekend of July (see previous post) to complete the work we started last month, and to address another bit of collapsed wall. There were five of us there, so we split into two groups: the first group went to finish the work we'd started the month before, while the rest of us tackled another collapsed section where there had been a large tree near the wall which had come down in a storm - apparently, even before it came down, you could see the wall being moved by its roots in strong winds ...

As with a lot of the walls at Wooplaw (and indeed, a lot of old walls everywhere) you just have to take a call as to how much you're going to take down and rebuild, as pretty much the whole wall could do with some attention. We decided on a section about four or five meters long, where the wall downhill at least was in pretty good nick, giving us a decent starting point. It looked like the stone had been coming off for some time: on one side there was a path, which was fairly clear, but on the other side there was a lot of stone, some of it buried quite deeply. There was also a ditch covered by undergrowth, which though thick enough to obscure the ditch completely wasn't strong enough to support the weight of someone stepping on it, as I can personally attest. The advantage of this experience was that at least it made me cautious about taking stone off on this side - I think we only lost one stone submerged in the ditch (though my guess would be that there was plenty more in there, including quite a few of the copes).

After lunch the first section was complete. A couple of us had to leave, but the rest of us worked on on the other section, and by mid afternoon when the rain started in earnest we'd got it up just about to sub-cope height.