Dyke Stone WallingDrystane dyking and pedra seca, learned on weekends in rural Catalonia

All wall notes

Every course laid, from the foundation up

A wall is read from the bottom, so this list is too. The first note sits at the foot as the foundation course and each later one is laid on top of it. The newest is the cope, at the top of the page.

TechniqueTerracesToolsHuts

  1. Foundation16 March 2025

    Technique · 7 min · checked again 10 August 2025

    Hearting: the part of the wall nobody sees and everybody depends on

    Why 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.

  2. Course 213 July 2025

    Terraces · 8 min · checked again 7 December 2025

    Terraces above the vines: what a Catalan marge asks of a Scottish waller

    Rebuilding 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.

  3. Course 325 January 2026

    Tools · 7 min · checked again 17 May 2026

    Batter frames, string lines and the argument about slope

    How 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.

  4. Cope31 May 2026

    Huts · 8 min · checked again 18 September 2026

    Closing the roof of a barraca over two cold weekends

    Helping 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.