Monday 15 March to Friday 19 March 2027
8 of 8 places left
Tap the free places to choose how many you would like.
Stay at Monte Maravilhas, breakfast and lunch every day, for a €1,000 contribution.
Stone Sport
The outer work
A week of dry stone walling in the Alentejo, with Steven McKay.
Nothing holds a dry stone wall up but gravity and judgement. Eight people, every level welcome, and your stay, breakfast and lunch included.
Next weeks: Mar 2027 and Apr 2027
A wall built without mortar is held together by friction, weight and the decisions of whoever built it. There is nothing to hide a mistake behind.
Stone Sport keeps the craft of dry stone walling alive by passing it on, and gives people time away from busy city life, in the quiet of the Portuguese countryside. It is the outer work of Nature's Portal, the non-profit association that cares for the land.
Everyone is welcome, from people who have never laid a stone to professional stonemasons. You need to be happy on your feet outdoors and not mind making mistakes in front of other people.
A day with the group
The group works like a company of actors getting ready for a play. Everyone has a part, and the parts can change.
Breakfast together
The day starts at the table at eight. Everyone sits together and talks about the work ahead.
One team on the wall
Each person takes a part that suits what they can do, what they would like to do, and what they want to learn from the week. Over the days you see who is good at what. When the work changes, the parts change with it.
Lunch in the shade
Lunch is eaten together, in the shade nearest the wall. Tools go down after it, at about two.
The afternoon is yours
Work starts early and stops before the heat. The rest of the day is free.
The times are approximate.
March and April 2027
The Walling Week: one course, run twice, in spring before the heat. Mornings on the wall with Steven, afternoons your own.
- Length
- 5 days
- Group
- 8 people
- Suits
- All levels
- Contribution
- €1,000
Monday 12 April to Friday 16 April 2027
8 of 8 places left
Tap the free places to choose how many you would like.
Stay at Monte Maravilhas, breakfast and lunch every day, for a €1,000 contribution.
Your contribution covers the teaching, tools and stone, your accommodation at Monte Maravilhas, and breakfast and lunch every day. Rooms are usually shared; ask if you would like one to yourself.
The walls stay on the land
What you build on a walling week is not a practice wall. Every wall is a real project on Nature's Portal, the land the courses belong to.
A wall here shelters an olive tree, holds water in the ground, or gives frogs, lizards and birds a home. And what the courses bring in goes back into the land as well. These are the projects that need walls:
Olive tree rings
A dry stone ring around each of 15 struggling olive trees.
0 of 15 rings built
- Build the ringsStill to come
- Fill with mulch and bushesStill to come
- Sit in the shadeStill to come
Next: build the rings
Record card
Olive tree rings
| Stamped | Entry |
|---|---|
| 2025 | The land is bought. A new beginning. |
| Next: build the rings |
No gifts are recorded yet. Each gift, and the work it pays for, will be stamped here.
Dragon fruit steps
Walls built like stairs, with dragon fruit growing out of them.
- Build the stepped wallsStill to come
- Plant the dragon fruitStill to come
- First fruitStill to come
Next: build the stepped walls
Record card
Dragon fruit steps
| Stamped | Entry |
|---|---|
| 2025 | The land is bought. A new beginning. |
| Next: build the stepped walls |
No gifts are recorded yet. Each gift, and the work it pays for, will be stamped here.
The walled garden
A 2.5 metre wall on the terrace slope, for plants that dislike the wind.
- Build the wallStill to come
- Plant gooseberry and rhubarbStill to come
Next: build the wall
Record card
The walled garden
| Stamped | Entry |
|---|---|
| 2025 | The land is bought. A new beginning. |
| Next: build the wall |
No gifts are recorded yet. Each gift, and the work it pays for, will be stamped here.
Six things hold up a wall with no mortar in it
A dry stone wall stands because every stone does a job for the stones around it, and it comes down when one of them stops. These six are the whole syllabus. Learning them well takes about a lifetime.
Foundation
Dug down through topsoil onto ground that will not move, and set a little wider than the wall it carries. The heaviest stones in the whole job go in here, below the line, and nobody ever sees them again.
Coursing
Stones go in long into the wall rather than along it, and every joint is covered by the stone above: one over two, two over one. Get that wrong in the first hour and the wall will tell on you for a century.
Hearting
The middle is packed by hand with small stone, each piece wedged against its neighbours. It is placed, never shovelled. Loose hearting is the commonest reason a wall bellies out and comes down.
Batter
Both faces lean in as the wall rises, so the two halves lean on each other instead of away. The dashed lines are plumb. Everything you build sits inside them.
Throughstones
Long stones set at intervals that reach right across and bear on both faces, tying what would otherwise be two thin walls into one thick one.
Copes
Set on edge along the head, packed tight and oversailing a little each side. They press the courses below together, throw the rain clear of the hearting, and stop anything with hooves picking the top apart.
Taught by one person, on his own ground
The weeks are taught by Steven McKay, a stonemason who has worked with stone his whole life. He learned the trade in Scotland, built houses for his family and children over the years, and is now building on his own land in the Alentejo. The stone there is schist and the earth is the colour of rust, but the craft is the same.
Steven teaches every week himself, and the group is kept to eight at most so that he can watch what each person's hands are doing. You work on real walls, not a practice wall in a yard.
Slow days in the countryside
You stay at Monte Maravilhas, a small estate of houses on a hillside near the village of São Martinho das Amoreiras, with a saltwater pool and the Rota Vicentina walking trail passing by. Breakfast and lunch are made for you every day.
Work finishes after lunch. The afternoons are for the pool, a walk, a swim at Santa Clara lake or a long sleep. In the evening you find your own dinner, and we give you a list of good places nearby.
Come and build with us
There are eight places in each week. If neither March nor April suits you, tell us and we will let you know when the next dates are set.