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.

I left school at 16 and so the Authors Foundation grant will be the first Grant I have ever received. I am enormously grateful as this will allow me to give up my regular Stonemasonry work for a good while, to further develop the Church Going idea with my Agent and submit a proposal to publishers. Glover, Julian (25 June 2020). "The ES guide to the best books to read this summer". Evening Standard. 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. With Vitruvius he believes in three characteristics for architecture: solidity, usefulness and beauty. Elsewhere, he describes the idea of the “Dark Ages”, an invention he attributes to Petrarch in the 14th century, as “discredited”. Naturally there are things to disagree with. I’m not sure Gislebertus really was the mason of the superlative carvings at Autun in Burgundy, rather than their patron. 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.

He goes on to explain that Portland was where Robert Hook first realised there had been species that no longer existed and speculated on evolution 250 years before Darwin. The text effortlessly transfers to The Monument in London built of Portland stone by Wren and Hooke, “drawing together the purest and most harmonious parts of the Enlightenment.” 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. 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. In his thirty-year career, stonemason Andrew Ziminski has worked on many of our greatest monuments. From Neolithic monoliths to Roman baths and temples, from the tower of Salisbury Cathedral to the engine houses, mills and aqueducts of the Industrial Revolution and beyond, The Stonemason is his very personal history of how Britain was built - from the inside out. Stone by different stone, culture by different culture, Andrew Ziminski (with his faithful whippet in tow) takes us on an unforgettable journey by river, road and sea through our countryside showing how the making of Britain's buildings offers an unexpected and new version of our island story. He wanted to write the book because he felt there was a gap in literature of writing by artisans. “Working people don’t really write books,” he says. “People aren’t interested in their opinions, but with The Stonemason they seem to be... I have done my job.”

Humphrey commented: “ Church Going will cast an entirely fresh light on the humble parish church. Who better to write about these fascinating buildings than Andrew Ziminski, whose intimate knowledge and infectious enthusiasm brings to life the secret lives of churches all around the British Isles and Ireland. We’re sure that this beautifully written and richly illustrated book will be the perfect present next Christmas, and for years to come.” Disappointingly, however, these kinds of details are very much a lesser objective of the book. Most of the book, it seems to me, is less about the nature of stonemasonry as it is of architecture. Or more specifically, architecture as it interacts with stonemasonry. Further, the whole is glued together with an extensive and rather rambling dialog/travelogue as Ziminski travels around southwest England, the area known as the old kingdom of Wessex. While I am myself a lover of small boats, I was more than a little nonplussed that almost as much prose was taken up by his canoe (some of the travel was by river and stream) as any discussion of stoneworking tools and methods. The author's eagerness to experience the past physically sets him apart from drier academic historians . . . Ziminski's writing is vividly evocative and craftsmanlife . .it's a fascinating book and a wise one, Daily Mail Later, time is spent in the carving workshop of St Pauls Cathedral and on Portland in Dorset, Thomas Hardy’s 'Isle of Slingers,' from where the raw materials weresupplied to construct what has become the nation's church. Re-bedding and re-pointing the stonework in specific areas was deemed necessary because much of the Ministry of Works cementitious repairs was failing. This has been specified in a hydraulic lime mortar, a softer and more permeable alternative to the cement.This might be the annual standoff between the differing archdruids at Stonehenge, gowned and straw boater-ed Rollo Maughfling and tin-crowned, sword-wielding Arthur Pendragon (ever ready to defend the henge from the maltreatment of “English Heretics”, as the sight’s modern custodians are known in Druidic circles); or, more personally, the torment of spending days strapped to the tower of St James’ Trowbridge, where “the aroma of the Ushers brewery merged with the aromatic delights of the adjacent Bowyers sausage and pork pie factory…” Other chapter titles are more familiar: Winter Solstice; Maundy Thursday, Armageddon(!); Whitsuntide; The Feast of the Transfiguration; Autumnal Equinox; Michaelmas. They give you an idea of a certain spirituality to Andrew’s odyssey – and it is, like any good odyssey, about so much more than simply moving from A to B. It is also a journey of personal exploration and discovery that moves from the Neolithic to Le Corbusier’s concrete ‘machines for living in’, stopping off along the way at the intervening periods represented by their built heritage. Each place Andrew visits on his journey is the jumping off point for all kinds of journeys spanning the globe and the millennia of human history. I am a stonemason not a historian and have concentrated on the buildings I have worked on and know best... Travelling to various jobs we join Ziminski as he travels to a variety of churches, castles and manor houses, not only admiring the buttresses and crenellations, but explaining with almost child like joy how his skills are used to repair the structure and preserve it for the generations to come 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 craftmanship which made this iconic landscape from the days of megalithic Sarsens to our modern use of concrete to create a “artificial stone”.

Andrew tells the story of how he became interested in stonemasonry in his introduction in The Stonemason. He got involved in the dismantling of an old brewery building, the 17 th century Reigate House, and its rebuilding at the Weald & Downland Museum of buildings near Chichester. Ziminski felt that books by historians and academics never quite got to the nub of what life was like for ordinary people, but there is little very ordinary about him. In his garden is a swimming pond he built himself, and one of the legs of his outdoor workshop houses a bottle of Pernod for dispensing post-winter-swim warming shots. It's out here that he does his thinking and experimenting. a b Mount, Harry (7 March 2020). "Carve his name with pride: Andrew Ziminsky rebuilds the West Country". The Spectator. 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. 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.Among his tools is a 100-year-old rosewood mallet "that's paid the mortgage for 30 years". On a recent job in Caerleon he popped into the Roman museum there and saw a similar mallet and chisel. "These are technologies that haven't really been challenged in thousands of years," he reflects. Few buildings are built the old way, but Ziminski loves modern architecture. The only thing that bothers him is the amount of cement. "About 8 per cent of global CO2 emissions come from the concrete industry. But then how else are you going to build infrastructure and hospitals? I wonder about all that Frenchay Hospital discarded stone. If the way we build certainly helps us to understand past communities, what will history record of us? When Ziminski mends an old building he uses lime mortars. "Old buildings move, and lime recrystallises over the old stitching. It breathes, and that's what keeps the building up," says the 52-year-old. Because, in the end, I really didn't care much for Mr. Ziminski's "road trip", so to speak. It isn't just him, I am actually not a big fan of such narratives in general. Take that as you will. If you like such things, do not let my three stars dissuade you. The stars after all are a measure of the reader's own subjective experience of the book. As well as through the presentation of some of the superstitions and idiosyncrasies of the British people throughout time, I also found that the authors obvious intelligence and kindness made this book all the more entertaining. Never before have I read a book with so many words I was unfamiliar with and the analysis of the interconnectedness between masonry, local environment and culture was hugely insightful. Whilst evident to anybody who has travelled within Britain, this book highlighted the sheer extent to which our nations history has been shaped by its riparian island nature. This is shown from start to finish as the author recounts his travels from one significant place to another using his canoe, ‘Laughing Water’, often with only his whippet in tow, and is outright stated when he explains how the Thames ‘became the arterial route of the Industrial Revolution’ in the final chapter.