Four of us, one yard, and no machine that cuts letters

Marrick Stone cuts inscriptions, architectural work and repairs, by hand, in a yard outside Richmond. We turn down more work than we take, mostly because somebody wanted it faster than it can honestly be done.

What we cut

Three things, by hand. Nothing cast, nothing sandblasted, nothing sent out.

Recent commissions

St Cuthbert's — a nave floor slab, recut

A ledger stone worn illegible by four hundred years of feet. We recorded what survived under raking light, cut the missing letters to the original hand rather than a modern one, and left the wear visible. A slab that looks new is a slab that has lost its argument.

Thirsk Town Hall — two volutes and a cornice return

Frost had taken the ends off both volutes. New stone from the original bed, worked to match a survey of the surviving one, and set with a lime mortar weaker than the stone so the next failure happens in the joint rather than the block.

A private memorial — drapery, cut from one block

The brief was a single word and a fold of cloth. Carving drapery is mostly deciding what to leave out; the fold reads because of the three cuts that are not there, which is not a thing anybody thanks you for and is the whole of the work.

Ripon — a foliate head, replaced after a survey

The original was beyond consolidation. We cut a replacement from the same quarry, recorded the old one, and put it inside where it can be seen. Replacing a carving is a decision about what a building is for, and it is not the mason’s alone.

The bank — what a commission looks like before it is anything

Every job starts as a block on a banker with a full-size drawing pinned beside it. We work from drawings rather than models, because a drawing forces you to decide the section, and a model lets you postpone it until the stone has decided for you.

Years at this bench

Stones cut

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People in the yard

They told us the stone we asked for was the wrong one, and were right. The work took nine months and I would not have had it in six.

Simon Hale

Churchwarden, St Cuthbert's

How a commission runs

If you have a building or a stone that needs something, write and describe it. We will tell you what we would do, what it would cost, and — often enough that it is worth saying — whether it wants doing at all.