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.
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.
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