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.