Jonny, the master mason.

It has been a mad day as we have been finalising all the components of the exhibition for the next week.  I managed to produce about thirty small prints of details showing many places around town to illustrate the issues we are focusing on.  But there was also the boards to be rounded up on which the maps and pictures will be mounted and then all loaded into my car to take to the Subscription Rooms tomorrow and then afterwards to the shop we are using all next week.

I also heard that we needed a picture of the new pilings in the ground for the extension to Lansdown Hall, which will be concreted over on Monday.  Then I found out that the gates to Bank Gardens which we had employed a mason to rebuild last year, and which were then damaged by the building contractors doing the piling two weeks ago, were being repaired.  

The good news was that Jonny, the master mason, who had trained at King's College Cambridge and on Westminster Abbey, would be able to repair the damaged pillar today.  He had to use a small crane to lift all the massive sections of Cotswold stone to clean up the surfaces in order to use fresh lime mortar.  When I arrived at about 4pm Jonny and his assistant were finishing the jointing and beginning to create the finished pointing, which you can see them doing in the picture.

I hope that in future we can employ Jonny again on the damaged stone work of Lansdown Hall just thirty yards away from this gateway.  We want to make sure that he can employ some young trainees who he can teach some skills to whilst repairing the Hall, which the town council bought as the Stroud town's  'village' hall.  I have been chairing the group which organises all the regeneration work on the Hall for the last four years.  We hope to be spending about £150,000 pounds this year on the next stage of the works.  The rebuilding of the gateway has been part of the process of improving the access for everyone to the main part of the building from the High Street which can be seen just behind Jonny in my picture.  The exhibition next week will be in a pop-up shop about twenty yards further away on the adjoining street.  Everything here is very local.