Last weekend, Matthias delivered the keynote address at this year’s SPAB members’ weekend, held in York, where he discussed the complex relationship between historic building conservation and the perpetuation of traditional building crafts- and the impact on training in the UK.

Fundamental to the future of excellence in craftsmanship is continued support for the exchange of skills and knowledge which comes from travel- or freedom of movement- (an essential component of traditional craft training), and an inclusive and collaborative relationship with our European colleagues.

Great news for the Team- the Rigg Monument conservation project has been shortlisted for this year’s York Design Awards. Have a look at the project page for detailed pics. Further info about the awards can be found here: www.yorkdesignawards.org/

Well done Matthias for being awarded The Worshipful Company of Mason’s Master Craftsman’s Certificate Award, 2017. The ceremony was held at the Merchant Taylor’s Hall, London, in February.

The Team, being awarded the York Guild of Building Craftsmanship Award for our conservation work at St Martin’s Church, Fangfoss, East Yorkshire.

From wooden armature to working clay model (approx. 1.2m length). Next step- to carve the corpus in limewood. The benefit of developing the design in clay is that the problem-solving has now largely been resolved. The task is now to establish the deep, modelled cuts that limewood allows in order catch light and shadow- which will make the piece much more dramatic……. and now the corpus is complete- please see the project page for detailed pics!

Rob just completed this lettered plaque for the Bugthorpe War Memorial Institute- copied like for like from the original, which was badly deteriorated.

Well done to our newest apprentice, Sean Henderson, on becoming a Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation Apprentice. This is a wonderful opportunity for Sean and will allow him to connect with a much greater community of craftspeople and conservators in the UK.

Just completed- this lovely capital collection in red sandstone for Carlisle Cathedral by carver Tim Foster.

We were recently invited to deliver a keynote address at a conference on Lines in Early Modern Europe organised by the Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies at the University of York- which was a very interesting day in general. This is an evolving discipline, offering a new conceptual framework within which to think about our cultural heritage- in considering how the structure of both material and immaterial things (the formal layout of an early printed text or a building, the construction of poetry, prose and its performance on stage) was influenced by a particular approach to space- and by the use of lines, both physical and symbolic, to delineate this space- and how this in turn shaped our perception and understanding of these things. We focused on the early modern period in particular, but of course lines and linearity define masonry from its inception….

There he is! St Martin himself, the original corbel stone re-fixed too far into the wall so that his attributes were obscured. He’s now legible, and freshly lime-washed along with the other corbel stones.