About Us
Standing Stone is dedicated to bringing you walls in natural stone to your design and specification.
Near Drymen
When Ivor first learned the art of dry stone dyking it was before he left school and it was in all weathers on the side of Rubers Law, a hill near Hawick. In those days squads of dykers maintained the dykes that ran for miles across the hills.
It was a hard way to learn, with the rain running off your neb and the older men shouting for 'mair stane laddie' and 'pit that hammer doon use the stane the way god made it'. And a lot of other words that cannot be printed.
Lessons that are hard to learn but never forgot. Hard work that resulted in field walls like the one below on the Isle of Man.
Following a pipeline, Isle of Man
Now in this era, walls are still features of the landscape and are much more likely to feature in gardens than ever before. We like to hark back to a bygone age and the lessons learned years ago still stand in good stead for building walls in traditional style and strength.
Retaining wall, Strathblane
Recently, Ivor has developed the business by adding work with Lime Mortar, another traditional technique for working with stone but one that is of increasing relevance as decay of stone in buildings across Scotland is accelerated by the use of cement in pointing and building. Cement based mortar is waterproof and traps moisture in the stone, causing dampness in buildings and more rapid decay of the fabric of the building itself.
Lime Mortar was used for thousands of years, since Roman times, and is the best material to use when a mortared wall is required. It allows a wall to breathe, moisture in a wall is released through the mortar joints and the stone is not affected by decay to the same extent.
Lime Mortar pointing is 'sacrificial'; it should decay before the stone and only requires a little maintenance to keep a building in good condition.
Now, every spring and summer, Standing Stone carries out Lime Mortar pointing to buildings across central Scotland. In the Winter, Dry Stone work takes precedence as it can be carried out in all weathers.