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.