What is stonemasonry?
Put simply, stonemasonry is the craft of turning rough stone blocks into accurate geometrical shapes, mostly simple, but some of staggering complexity, and then fixing the resulting stones together with mortar to form buildings. Quarrymen split the rock, and extract the resulting blocks of stone from the ground. Sawyers cut these rough blocks into rectangles of the required size. Banker masons are workshop based, and specialise in carving stones into the geometrical shapes required by a building’s design. They can produce anything from stones with simple chamfers to tracery windows. Carvers cross the line from craft to art, and use their artistic ability to carve stone into foliage, figures, animals or abstract designs. Fixer masons specialise in the fixing of stones onto buildings, using lifting tackle, mortar, and sometimes metal fixings. The precise tolerances necessary make this a highly skilled job. Memorial masons carve gravestones and inscriptions. This list is not exhaustive, b
