Barrhead

Repairs and reshaping to the drive meant this drystone retaining wall in Barrhead had to be pushed back into the bank. We took the wall down and cut the bank back. This is the after shot with the wall rebuilt. You can see the original line where the monoblock is crooked. The slope is steep though it may not look too bad in this picture We cut steps into it and ran the stone courses in horizontally. This should have been easy enough, but the last few weeks have been very wet and the slope was a mud slide.

Bearsden

Here are some sort of before and after shots for a job I did in Bearsden recently. The gardens climb steeply here onto a fairly high ridge covered in mature trees. The school at one end of the ridge down in Drumchapel is called Drummore and preserves the Gaelic name for the feature. The wall was built high up, where the long garden met the woods and getting the stone up was exhausting. I am glad that part at least is over. Its not far from Garscadden wood nature reserve and I think it is surrounded in a way by houses so it's a wildlife haven on the edge of the city. Two weeks ago I heard and then glimpsed a raven above the trees. It was a pleasant surprise but it must have been a visitor because I haven't seen or heard it since.

Killcreggan

I finished the stretches of dyke in Kilcreggan. As is often the case, I ran short of stone and had to borrow from the heaps around the gardens. Although the original wall tipped over, it was built with much skill. The facing was tight and, for a wall of such height and narrowness, it is standing well. In fact it is narrower at the base than many walls only two thirds its height and this is maybe part of its problem. But not all. The hearting is a bit sparse inside and, now a century has passed, it has settled and migrated down a bit . This is why we often run short of stone. The guys, like most workers back in the day, were paid low rates by the yard and chucked the hearting in to build the walls up fast and thicken their paypacket. As with most jobs, the rate of pay is fairer now and so we build walls with stouter hearts, at least we should. And building them tighter like this uses more stone. Despite all this, those men built a good wall that is, barr the odd repair, still standing straight and true long after they passed.