Drystone walls in Comrie, Perthshire

As a drystone waller working in Perthshire I rarely have a job where the view isn’t beautiful, and ‘Wall treasure’ is another perk of the dry stone walling trade and I was, as you can see from the photo, thrilled to find a bale spike and an old whisky bottle. Glass bottles are always an exciting find in a drystone wall. The bottles were often used as hearting when disgarded by a waller who had finished the contents. This one was found in a drystone wall near Comrie.

Something I love about this craft is how little it has changed over time. Yes, our tools have improved, we now have access to things like carbide hammers etc but we still do all the work by hand. A large part of dry stone walling is shaping stones and breaking up unusable stones for hearting. Shaping stones is a tricky business and you have to get used to each stone type so as to understand the best way to work with that stone and not ‘kill’ it (render it unusable).