Two traditions, one pile of stone
A Galloway dyker's notebook from the terraces and stone huts of Catalonia.
A Scottish waller in Barcelona learning Catalan pedra seca on weekend repair days: terrace walls, corbelled huts, hearting, batter frames and slow, honest stonework.
- Home
- Barcelona
- On the hill since
- 2021
- Notes laid
- 04
Words from two hillsides
What I call it, what I heard it called, and what it does
The Catalan column is what volunteers said to me on the hill, spelled as best I could. Where two words look like a pair and are not, the last column says so.
GallowayCatalan hillsideWhat it is for
HeartingrebleThe small stone packed between the tails of the face stones. Behind a terrace it also drains the bank.
PinsfalquesWedges that steady a face stone. Set from inside the wall, never knocked in from the face.
BattertalúsThe lean of the face. Both faces in on a field dyke, back into the hill on a terrace.
Throughsno single word heardLong stones laid right across a double dyke to tie the two faces together.
CopecoronamentThe top of the wall. Upright stones on a dyke, flat edging stones on a terrace.
DykemargeNot the same thing: a dyke stands in a field, a marge holds up the next terrace.
BothybarracaAlso not the same: a barraca is roofed in stone alone, rings closing to a capstone.
Wall notes
Laid so far, newest at the top of the wall
- Huts · 31 May 2026Closing the roof of a barraca over two cold weekendsHelping rebuild the corbelled stone roof of a small vineyard hut in rural Catalonia: rings of stone, a capstone, earth on top, and no timber anywhere at all.
- Tools · 25 Jan 2026Batter frames, string lines and the argument about slopeHow a Scottish batter frame and a Catalan builder's eye approach the same problem of shaping a dry wall, with measurements from four repair days near Barcelona.
- Terraces · 13 Jul 2025Terraces above the vines: what a Catalan marge asks of a Scottish wallerRebuilding a collapsed vineyard terrace wall in the hills west of Barcelona: one face, a bank of earth, drainage, and a batter that looks wrong to a dyker's eye.
- Technique · 16 Mar 2025Hearting: the part of the wall nobody sees and everybody depends onWhy the small stones packed inside a dry wall matter more than the handsome face stones, as learned on a Galloway field dyke and relearned on a Catalan terrace.