Ballochmyle Walls forum 2 room
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Does anyone have any ideas on how the site might be protected or saved because it will probably require an imaginative solution.

The art is unique (?) on being on a vertical face to well over head height and many metres wide. So it cannot be turfed over for protection as you can with most other rock art. Nor can it be removed and placed indoors as has been done (controversially, maybe) with other types of carved stones subject to environmental damage.

Covering it up with trees again or putting it behind a fence of some sort might prevent wilful damage but, from what I saw on my last visit about 6 months ago, this is arguably less of a problem than environmental damage which would not be addressed by these methods. The potential for serious wilful damage is, of course, high so it shouldn't be ignored.

So what does that leave? Well, maybe it could be boxed in with some sort of toughened glass enclosure but it would have to be pretty big - much bigger than the unsightly boxes which have been put round some Pictish stones and maybe too big to be feasible. That would take away a lot of the visual appeal - most visitors would have to look at it through the glass. Not what many of us would wish for.

Saying what probably will not work is the easy bit. Hopefully someone here can come up with something which should work.

Meantime, Hob and others, if you are planing to see it, morning is best. It loses the sun in the afternoon.

>>>Meantime, Hob and others, if you are planning to see it, morning is best. It loses the sun in the afternoon.

cheers for that tip... although at this time of year the tree / leafcover is so dense I reckon there'd be hardly any light at any time of day!

It was so dark down there yesterday (which was actually quite a sunny day "up top") most of my pictures have come out all blurry :((