ChapterhouseSharpening the chisels
Chapterhouse

Heritage stonemasons Lincoln

Every cathedral begins as a rough block.

We restore cathedrals and carve new stone to match, in a working yard under the minster. Come and watch a block become an arch.

Book a yard tour Watch a block become an arch

Scroll to start cutting

01 From quarry to keystone

From quarry to keystone

The quarry block

A tonne and a half of honey stone.

Every job starts here: a rough block of Lincolnshire limestone, split from the bed and left to season for over a year. Our masons read the bedding before they touch it, because stone cut against its grain will fail in the first hard frost.

Seasoned fourteen months

The template and the first cut

Mark once. Cut once.

A zinc template, cut to the drawing, is pressed to the face and the outline scribed in. Then the first cut: mallet and chisel take the block back to true, square and sharp at every arris.

Tolerance: half a millimetre

Carving

The face was always in there.

Point, then claw, then flat chisel. A gargoyle, a foliate boss or a worn corbel copied from the original: every stroke by hand, and the stone shows pale wherever it has just been cut.

Eleven days for this head

The arch is raised

Stone by stone, from both sides.

A timber centering holds the shape while our treadwheel crane lifts each voussoir. The masons bed them in lime mortar, working up from both springers at once so the load stays even.

Fifteen stones, three tonnes

The keystone

And then the last one drops in.

The keystone locks the ring. Strike the wedges, lower the frame and the arch carries itself: the moment we wait for on every job. Then the glass goes in, and the light comes through.

Built to stand for centuries

Cut0stones set

I / V

02 Your turn

Choose an arch.
Watch it rise.

Four centuries, four ways to span a gap. Pick a style and the timber centering, the stones and the tracery are taken down and rebuilt from scratch.

Style

Style
Early English lancet
Era
c. 1220
Stones
15

Drag the scene to look round

03 What we do

Four ways to work with us.

Restoration

Fabric repair

from £1,150 survey

  • Stone-by-stone condition schedule
  • Day gang of three masons: £1,380 a day
  • Replacement ashlar from £220 a stone
Ask for a survey

Bespoke carving

New stone, old hands

from £1,850

  • Foliate boss or corbel: £1,850
  • Gargoyle or grotesque: £3,400
  • Heraldic panel: £2,600
Send a drawing

Apprenticeships

Learn the trade

taster week £120

  • Three years, paid, Level 3 stonemasonry
  • Taster week refunded if you sign on
  • Sponsor an apprentice: £390 a month
Join a taster week

Yard tours

See it being done

from £14

  • Adult £14, child £7, family £36
  • Private group of eight: £180
  • Carve your own keepsake, two hours: £65
Book a tour

04 The small print

Slow work, no shortcuts.

Yard founded
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four generations of the same families
Cathedrals and minsters served
0
across Lincolnshire and the East Midlands
Apprentices trained
0
nine of them now run their own yards
Carved pieces in place
0
every one signed with a mason's mark

05 Visit the yard

Book a yard tour.

Ninety minutes among the banker benches, with a mason to answer questions and a chisel to hold if you ask nicely. Wear sturdy shoes: the yard is dusty.

We reply within a day. A concept page: nothing is bookable.

The yard

Chapterhouse Yard
Stonebow Row, Lincoln LN1 9XX

Hours

Yard open Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm
Tours Saturday, 10am, 12 noon and 2pm
Closed Sundays

Get in touch

01522 555 0147
yard@chapterhouse-stonemasons.example