Stone Banker – What is a Stone Banker?
According to Matthew Merrett of Israel, a banker mason is the mason who recieves the stone in a square or rectangular shape, then with drawings, sections top bed moulds and bottom bed moulds etc the banker mason will begin to carve out the shape of the stone to be. Whether this is a piece of cornice, a pediment springer or a piece to a tracery window from a cathedral or a window cill, mullions etc, some work is extremely intricate and can take months to carve out e.g. lettering and plaques and fountains. Probably the name is synonymous with a stone carver in the modern world; a banker is the name for the stone table on which the mason works. This may be old English. I was trained in Bath, UK where there was a very old tradition with regard to stonework. A fixer mason will be the type of mason who takes the carved stone from the banker mason and much like a bricklayer fixes it into the building, however stone buildings require a different fixing and building technique from brick and fix
