The dry-stone hut on our Can Martí estate

Barraca de Pedra Seca a la Finca Can Martí

On the path that communicates the two country houses on our Can Martí estate, next to the Pota Gros (Big Foot) vine, we conserve in perfect condition a dry-stone hut that dates from the middle of the XIX century. Throughout history, many generations have taken stones from the fields that prevented work, or the proper growth of seeds or plants. These are the stones, mostly limestone, that have been used to build huts, borders or walls.

Why did we use the dry-stone hut?

The vineyard huts were used by the farmers to keep their tools, as a place to rest and to protect them from the rain when the vineyard was far from the place where they lived.

How we can build a dry-stone hut?

The hut’s construction technique, the alignment of the layers, is probably very ancient. It consists of piling the stones horizontally without cleaning them, flat, well-evened out with each other and with a slight inclination. The top layer leans toward the interior, forming rings of stones of a decreasing radius up to a dome which is closed with one or various slabs. Sometimes they also put a layer of clay or vegetable pinning. The hut is also home to insects, amphibians, reptiles, small mammals and some birds, as well as ferns, lichen and moss.