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.

A new east tracery window at St Paul’s Church, Drighlington nearly brings this project to completion.

Up it went! We recently finished re-fixing the new tracery pieces for the East window at Trinity Church, Ossett. It’s taken the team months to complete the pieces for re-fixing- 35 in total.