How a Drystone Wall Is Built: A Look at the Craft

A well-built drystone wall can stand for a hundred years or more without any mortar holding it together. It is one of the oldest building crafts in Scotland, and across Aberdeenshire and Deeside the field dykes, estate walls and garden boundaries are part of the landscape itself. But how does a wall made of nothing but stacked stone stay standing? The answer is in the technique.

It starts below ground

Every good drystone wall begins with a firm foundation. We dig out a shallow trench and set the largest, flattest stones — the foundation course — directly onto solid ground. Get this right and the rest of the wall has something to grip; get it wrong and no amount of skill higher up will save it.

Two faces, one wall

A traditional dyke is built as two leaning faces that taper inwards as they rise — wider at the base, narrower at the top. The stones are placed lengthways into the wall, not along it, so each one ties back into the structure rather than simply sitting on the face.

The gap between the two faces is packed with smaller stones called hearting. This is the hidden heart of the wall — it locks the faces together and stops them from spreading. A wall that is hollow or loosely packed in the middle will bulge and fail; a properly hearted wall behaves almost as a single mass.

The stones that tie it together

At intervals, longer stones called throughstones are laid right across the wall, bridging both faces. These act like stitches, binding the two sides so they cannot pull apart. It is one of the details that separates a wall built to last from one thrown up quickly.

Finishing the top

The wall is finished with a course of coping stones, usually set on edge along the top. As well as giving the wall its distinctive look, the copes add weight that presses down through the whole structure, and they shed rain away from the hearting below.

Done properly, a drystone wall flexes slightly with frost and ground movement instead of cracking, drains freely so water never sits inside it, and can be repaired stone by stone rather than rebuilt. That is why, centuries on, so many of Scotland’s dykes are still standing.

If you have a wall that needs building or an old dyke that has started to bulge or fall, we would be glad to take a look and talk through the right approach.