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Badger

Dry stone dyke nerds: what do you call the ridge of ragged stones on top of the wall? Here, on Sanday in Orkney (Scotland), they're Rag Stones. What do youse call them?

A ragged dry stone wall with awkwardly stacked rocks and a lot of lichen
@shezza_t

@BadgerandVole I don’t know what they’re called, but I do know @kristiedegaris knows a _lot_ about dry stone walling.

Kristie

@shezza_t @BadgerandVole Copes here in Perthshire, boring I know. I've heard toppers from drystone wallers in England. Regional styles and regional lingo for Drystone is so interesting!

@shezza_t

@kristiedegaris I’ve walked sections of our most famous Northern Irish dry stone wall, and wish the guides would give more details about the actual wall itself.

We hear about its length, and how many men were involved in building it; but nothing about why they built the different sections the way they did.

@BadgerandVole

A grey granite dry stone wall stretches across a scrubby heather covered plateau, climbing up the slope of the mountain in the distance.
A straight on look at the intricate construction of a granite dry stone wall, showing the seemingly random boulders that make up the main body of the wall. The top level of the wall is capped with much smaller stones. The grass of the field behind the wall can be seen in the gaps between the stones.
Looking along the Mourne Mountain wall at Hare’s Gap. The wall here looks like the stones have been shaped to make a much more closely knit structure. The top row of stones jut out over the wall.
Close up on the Hare’s Gap wall showing a large flat step stone jutting out from the face of the wall.
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Kristie

@shezza_t @BadgerandVole The stones jutting out might be through stones but hard to tell, and the stones on top are called coverbands where I'm from.

Badger

@kristiedegaris @shezza_t we'd call those through stones (steens, though), too! The rag(ged) stones on top of our dykes is to deter roaming livestock, although I've had to repair a few dykes where a bull has put all his weight on it to try to get to a grass verge! It seems much more peaceable to have a neat, flat layer. Also: we mainly have beach stone, so I'm envious of how neat these can get!!

Kristie

@BadgerandVole @shezza_t They can indeed get very neat, but the core of the craft is doing what you can with what you have!

Badger

@kristiedegaris @shezza_t Indeed! And I can do a decent job with round stone and a rubble heart, I just really enjoy it when it's not quite such a balancing act! Still, it's very much early days for me, a little over a year apprenticed to an octogenarian expert, so I know I have a lot of learning to come!

Kristie

@BadgerandVole @shezza_t I've been doing it for 4 years now and I'll be learning forever I think. We use a lot of fieldstone here in Perthshire so something like sandstone or slate is a treat.

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