I had a wonderful tour of the building works at the Maison Dieu in Dover a few weeks ago. As their stonemason in residence I feel an attachment to this wonderful historic building and I am looking forward to seeing it restored to it’s former glory. There are gaol cells beneath the stone hall, when they were being cleared out a medieval tomb was discovered. At the entrance to each cell is some beautiful letter carving, describing what the cells were used for, dark and black they are foreboding, a lady that used to work in the building said it’s very haunted…I’m sure there will be some events an ..read more

Before Christmas I bought some beautiful torch-work glass beads from a skilled craftsman. He creates the beads by melting glass rods together and the result is magical. Due to my workload I haven’t had a chance to start creating with them…until now. This beautiful ring made with a cabochon bead, it reminds me of the Cat’s Eye Nebula. (size S, £65). I also have two more new pairs of earring made using simple glass beads, the orange ones feature torch-work beads in the middle. (£40) I use sterling silver to make my findings on the beads and earrings and use a special paste to protect the ..read more

Last year I was engaged as the official letter cutter for the Founder’s livery company. On Monday, I caught an early train and headed up to London. It was a gloomy day, the Thames was swathed in mist and the skyscrapers disappeared into the fog. As we pulled into Cannon street, I got the tube round to the Barbican station just round the corner from the Founder’s hall. Their 5th building, built in the mid eighties but styled in the arts and crafts movement. My work for them consists of painting the most recent master’s name onto a gilded board with their shield on, historically the shield woul ..read more

My job takes me out and about. Today, I went to my village church to look at a potential commission. I’ve been asked to clean and re-carve some memorial tablets. While there, I decided to have a look around, something that I haven’t done since I was much younger, There are some great slate notices explaining why things have been left or what is going on to help nature and the churchyard. There are alot of old beautiful carved tablets and tombs, some have been laid down before they fall down. I rather like this carving next to this wonderful drainage hopper. Don’t forget the wond ..read more

I spent Friday inspiring young adults with stonemasonry. East Kent College in Dover in conjunction with the Maison Dieu ran a creative careers café, the students could choose which activity they would participate in and there were also tours of the college. I was invited to run stonemasonry activities and decided to give a basic introduction to the fundamental tools used. I took my tools, stone, drawings, photos and my old course notes. There were four sessions of 45 minutes and each group had a go at the basics of stonemasonry, I also showed them how to draw an Ellipse using the trammel metho ..read more

These two are the very latest commissions, very different house signs but carved with the same care. Designing a house sign can take a few tries, as finding out what my customer doesn’t want helps me identify what they would like. The second image is whimsical and has a toy like hare, whereas the first image is more formal with the mystical moongazing hare, this is the one my customer liked but I needed to make the snout shorter. 3 Rectory Orchard was more straight forward as my customer liked a previous commission. I currently have a 5 month waiting list so please get in touch if ..read more

This is one of my latest commissions. I was asked to carve something unique to celebrate a wedding that took place in Bali. This is hand carved and painted out of a piece of Forest of Dean sandstone, with the national flower of Bali and holes for tealights. 3 Rectory Orchard will be my first commission of the new year. Harecroft with the whimsical font wasn’t right for my customer so I re-drew it, the font is right but I need to make the nose of the Hare shorter, it doesn’t look quite right. Each house sign is drawn from my imagination, so I don’t always get it right first time. This ..read more

I finished my Greenman carving today, he’s got a real old grumpy look about him, but in a good way, maybe it’s just because I’m fed up with the weather and it’s coming out in my carving. He He He. Here’s a video from my youtube channel and the finished photos. This is roughly 25 hours work and costs £1200 Working on my Greenman carving. There’s a mouse tucked in one side and a bird on the other. I hope you like him, there’s two hares coming next ..read more

This Greenman is straight out of my imagination, I am not working from a plan or sketch. This is a fun way to be creative as things that I observe in nature and people that I meet come out of my sub-conscious and wind up as a stone carving. Here’s a video of me carving him. Working on my new Greenman carving. I am using French limestone, it is lovely and dense and carves beautifully. I am using cold steel chisels but some tungsten tipped chisels for when I come across a fossil ..read more

This is Ben Edge, an incredibly talented artist, he focuses on Folklore art and here he is as a Greenman. Ben commissioned me to carve his as a Greenman and I relished the challenge. I hand carved this out of French limestone. Once I had completed the carving, I made a silicone mould so that casts could be produced. There are 13 casts and Ben is going to paint them in his inimitable style. These will be available to buy from him. Here we both are with my original stone-carving, when Ben came and collected his casts ..read more