Orkney’s ancient walls stand the test of time
One day at work, stuck inside four walls, head in a spin, had me climbing walls. How to decompress? Build walls of course. Rather than drive straight home, I called past a local farm where I often indulge my passion for building dry stone walls.
See more details on the Orkney’s ancient attractions at the following links:
https://www.orkney.com/listings/skara-brae-skaill-house
https://www.orkney.com/things/history/world-heritage-sites
When visiting Orkney’s ancient attractions, I often find myself staring transfixed at the walls, lost in thought, as I try to imagine the sights and sounds of builders at work as they first prepared the ground and then chose and placed their stones carefully, building up layer upon layer; bigger foundation stones at the bottom, medium and smaller stones thereafter.
Some things never change. The principles of building with dry stone are timeless and rigidly adhered to for these walls must stand the test of time in an often unforgiving environment. Indeed, I like to think our ancient ancestors would approve of efforts to keep alive the skill of dyking in Orkney. And maybe they too had a variation of the old saying which says:
Dinna lay a stane abuin a stane
Lay ae stane abuin a twa
Cairry on daeing that
Au suin ye’ll hae a wa
Personally, I find the whole experience of dyke building deeply rewarding and something I am hugely passionate about- it's such a huge part of my heritage-so don’t be surprised if the tour commentary involves a discussion about stones should you ever take an Orkney tour with me!
Interested in a tour exploring Orkney’s ancient history?
