Practical dyking day at Torduff

This event had been rescheduled from a cold and snowy March, being blessed on its new date (last Saturday) by comfortable dry Spring weather. Four branch members (Richard, Alan, Margaret and John Doohan, plus Coolie the dog) met up with Martin Duncan from Pentland Hills Ranger Service and enjoyed a great day dyking at Torduff Reservoir (in April last year we repaired a large gap in the wall at the west end of this reservoir - see blog entry for 24-04-2012). This time a precarious looking bulge had been spotted in a high wall section to the right of another repair carried out by the branch a couple of years ago, and removal of one or two stones brought it crashing down.

The cope stones had been mortared in place, resulting in a fixed top with gaps below as the wall had settled, and (as they no longer had the weight of the cope to hold them in place) the stones below were starting to fall out towards the road. 

This section of the wall was on a slope which made it quite challenging. Following some serious chainsaw surgery by Martin on a hawthorn tree which was growing very close to the wall, our dykers nearly managed to complete the rebuild with the existing stone plus some left over from previous repairs, and John and Coolie took the spare wood home with them for their woodburning stove.

Due to the public situation, the copes will need to be mortared in again later, despite this very probably being at least part of the reason for the problem in the first place (along with an outward sloping foundation stone).

It was an ideal spot to promote the work of the Association. Many passers-by (and dogs) stopped to express an interest in the work (and Coolie), and there was even a ‘definite’ taker for one of our courses – or so he said, if he can find the website.

Many thanks to all who took part, and to Richard and Margaret for reports and photos.