The Stonemason: A History of Building Britain

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Minerva usually works in the area known as Wessex in the UK, but undertakes church monument conservation work throughout the UK and abroad. This kind of wonder at the enduring work of “ordinary” craftspeople is something that Ziminski is particularly keen to coax out of readers of his book, partly he says, as a reaction to the times we’re living in. “I really wanted to communicate the fact that our country was built by migrants: it was the ebb and flow of populations that made Britain. You see it absolutely everywhere, from the window tracery of every single Gothic cathedral which is based on an Islamic design, to the Stonehenge sarsens, which were cut by people from the Low Countries.” Yet there is no evidence that in England Samhain was ever celebrated before Hallowe’en came in. Nor had Celtic‑speaking people anything to do with the long barrows of the fourth millennium before Christ, built long before the arrival of the Celtic language.

Every region adds its flavour to the country. Edinburgh's grand designs exhausted local sandstone quarries. The granite and slate of quaint Cornish cottages is highly prized. The subtitle –A history of building Britain– is fulfilled through Ziminski’s effort to “know everything about [these old places] … Who built them? … Where had they sourced the stone?” He is as interested in the long-forgotten itinerant men and women behind them as he is in the stone leviathans themselves.Until the 18th century and the arrival of canals and, later, trains, buildings were largely made of the stone beneath them — except in places without building stone nearby, such as Westminster Abbey. That’s where Ziminski served his apprenticeship 30 years ago, working on the Caen stone imported at huge expense from Normandy.

It did exactly the same job as the war memorial in Frome. It's about a community coming together to mourn those who have passed, and a focal point for that society.The grant will contribute greatly towards affording me the time to make careful considerations and ensure that the full potential of the teaching content is realised. Specifically, I want to thank the Trust for recognising the need for this book which has given me a much-needed dose of encouragement and a vote of confidence as I enter the final publishing stages. I very much hope that with improved education, we will see a wider appreciation of Swings and a surge in young performers who aspire to take on the unique challenges of the role. Travelling to various jobs we join Ziminski as heAndrew Ziminski entwines the landscape and architecture, the art and craft, the archaeology and history of the building of Britain into a singular thread that wraps the reader into the tranquility of the landscape of the very world we’ve created to admire a skill that we’ve all but left behind. Ziminski takes us on a tour of building the landscape around us to the country we recognise today and bypass the art and craftsmanship which made this iconic landscape from the days of megalithic Sarsens to our modern use of concrete to create an “artificial stone”. Ziminski comforts us with the knowledge that our sense of detachment from the past is not a novel phenomenon. Working on Roman Bath, he is reminded of the Old English poem “The Ruin”, whose author, in the eighth or ninth century, marvelled at the “wondrous” remnants of a lost civilisation, its corrupted and incomprehensible shell appearing to him like the “work of giants”. It is a privilege to feature on the cover of the reissued Repair of Ancient Buildings written by AR Powys in 1929. This invaluable work is available from the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings bookshop. Ziminski has been keeping journals since completing his fellowship with The Society For The Protection Of Ancient Buildings in 1998. The Society was set up by William Morris in 1887, and it has been at the forefront of protecting our built heritage ever since.

Working in the Roman Baths in Bath Andrew found it deeply satisfying to conserve the famous Gorgon Pediment and other equally important monuments using the same tools and techniques and even lifting equipment as his Roman forebears. Please help the Society continue to deliver our FREE online Lecture Programme by making a donation to cover the cost of upgraded IT and software. We would really appreciate your support. Thank you!I confess that I was greatly disappointed by this book, largely because I was expecting something else. And what I found was outside of my usual literary likes. There’s a strange quotation from Sir Thomas Browne, the agreeable 17th-century antiquary: “To have our sculs made drinking bowls and our bones turned into pipes to delight and sport our enemies are tragical abominations.” Ziminski applies that to the scattered bones of West Kennet, but Browne was arguing in Urne-Buriall that such abominations were avoided “in burning burials”, the Bronze-age cremations in Norfolk. Ziminski features “Samhain” in his chapter headings, and says that this, the first day of the Celtic calendar, was replaced by All Saints. The book comes satisfyingly full circle to the sarsen stones of Salisbury Plain where it begins with Andrew spending a fitful night in a long barrow near Stonehenge. He concludes: “Stone as a material has allowed the meaning of these monuments to the dead to endure beyond their time. As I have attempted to negotiate my own understanding of the past, I am left touched with the notion that every building, sculpture and structure I have seen in my journey was created by people who felt and thought in a way that was familiar to us, a thread of connection and culture that in some way will continue to run on through the generations.”