Ormlie

Ormlie Community Association Walling Project

This public art installation was part of a housing refurbishment in Ormlie in the south-west of Thurso, Caithness.

The following is take from the DSWA Website photo library "Ormlie Community Association Walling Project , Thurso , Caithness 2004"
As part of a "Home Zone" refurbishment in Ormlie Estate , the young residents were briefed on suitable wall shapes for the project by George Gunn, and asked to come up with designs for the stone features, which also included their own drawings etched into stone tablets. These drystone wall designs were incorporated into the project which was built by George Gunn , Master Drystone Waller .

I am indebted to george Gunn for permission to use these photos.

Ormlie Wavy Wall Ormlie Wavy Wall Planter Ormlie Wavy Wall Seat

Mourne Giant Wall

Giant Wall, Mourne
This wall is featured in"Ireland:Stone Walls & fabled Landscapes" by Alen Macweeney and Richad Conniff (Frances Lincoln, London, 1998. p.61) and is reproduced by kind permission of Alen MacWeeney

In the mountains of Mourne in the north of Ireland, Waller Phelim Doran and farmer Dermot Trainor build their walls big. This is a relatively standard design boulder/single wall, tapering with height and with relatively flat faces. One of several built by dermot and various farmers, from glacial granite boulders.

Stones are roughly placed with a JCB and fine tuned with bars and hammers,with "spallies" - smaller wedges of stone helping secure them.

The height of these walls means that they do not suffer the normal single's fate of having relatively small and insecure topstones dislodged by cattle rubbing their necks on the top of the wall.