Friends of the Ochils Newsletter 16: Summer 2000
Glenquey's Great Wall
DRYSTANE dykes criss-cross the Ochils, delineating marches or boundaries and affording shelter for sheep and lambs as well as for happy (or sometimes unhappy) wanderers. One such dyke, the march dyke between the estates of Glenquey and Glendevon, has special significance for William Shand of Crook of Devon. It snakes for miles up over the 2000ft-high summit of Innerdownie and was rebuilt over two summers in the last decade of the 19th century by Mr Shand's grandfather George along with George's brother Willie. As young men in 1892, the pair undertook the challenging task which meant that for two summers home became a wooden hut in a little quarry just below the summit of Innerdownie. This quarry was the source of the stone for their rebuilding work.
Still visible at the quarry is evidence of the dykers' labour: a right-angled drystane shelter wall which provided a windbreak for the little hut they took up the hill on a "slype", a horse-drawn cart normally used to carry hayricks from field to barn. Only a puzzling and out-of-place construction such as this windbreak might lead one to wonder what went on here, and to discover the story behind the Shand brothers' Great Wall.
As well as a love of the Ochils, Mr Shand shares with the grandfather he never met the ability to play the bagpipes. Unlike his great uncle William, however, or his own late father, he never aspired to become a competitor in the heavy events at the surrounding Highland games meetings. His grandfather's pipes and a 16lb hammer featured among the gear considered necessary on Innerdownie during the two summers of rebuilding the wall. In the long days the stillness of the early morning would regularly be broken by a stirring march tune, or an enchanting slow air. There was a foxes' den fairly near the brothers' temporary abode and they would often watch the cubs at play. When the day's work was done, the pipes might be heard once more and occasionally some hammer-throwing would be indulged in, perhaps in competition with a couple of the local shepherds. Mr Shand's father took part as a "heavy" at the Highland games in Crieff and Blackford.
The rebuilding was not always as idyllic as it sounds. There would be long miserable days to thole, made bearable by the lighter moments, as the blistering work continued. Having agreed a price, it was up to the brothers to set to and get the work finished as quickly as they could. The job was measured and paid for in chains, one chain being 22 yards. The rate of pay was a little over 1s 6d per yard!
Surmounting the march dyke was a two-wire fence, the iron supporting standards being set into regularly drilled stones. The drilling was laboriously accomplished with a hammer and a tool known as a "jumper", which was thumped and turned on the stone until the hole was deep enough to bed the standard in sulphur and coal tar.
Mr Shand recalls his father telling of a walk he went with his uncle Willie, during which the uncle pointed out a particularly large stone in a dyke. "D'ye see that stane?" the uncle had said. "Weel, yer faither and I lifted it there in 1890!" Their own father - Mr Shand's great-grandfather - had been present and had tried to dissuade them. "But we were young an' daft, an' just did it. Dinnae you be trying onything like that!"
Mile upon mile of drystane dykes remain on and around the Ochils today. Some were built by the Shand brothers, others repaired by them, and all are a lasting memorial to a bygone age and to a breed of men in tune with their surroundings.
David Robertson
(Based on a chat with William Shand and on an article of his in The People's Friend.)
