Cat's Eye Carving

Moving and Installing the war memorial.

27 October, 2021 – 4:45 pm

We used the gantry crane to lift the 3.8T block of Forest of Dean Sandstone and then carefully lowered it down onto blocks of wood to protect my precious carving. Once this was done we were then able to move the stone over by lifting and sliding over using the dolly on the beam. The stone would then be lowered back down and this was repeated other 3 times until it was where it needed to be.

Obviously seeing the carving from this angle made me want to get my hammer and chisel and just do a little bit more carving.

Once we had it lined up we could do no more until the lorry arrived the following morning and then the next stage of it’s journey could continue.

When the stone arrived at my studio it was just a block of stone, now it is something precious and needs to be protected, special blankets were wrapped around underneath the straps.

Once the stone was in place on the ground the holes could be drilled and the stainless steel bars could be fixed into position.

The stone was end heavy, due to my carving we couldn’t balance the stone and so Damon used the pallet truck to assist with the moving until the lifting beam had cleared the overhead cables.

When the stone was outside my studio it looked huge, when it was lowered onto the lorry it looked so small but when it was lowered into place it looked like it had always been there.

We were always careful to make sure that the lifting equipment stayed away from any delicate area of my carvings.

When we arrived on site, the first thing was to get the stone off the lorry.

That white house is where George Hyett grew up.

Obviously getting the stone on and off the lorry required a different lifting set up. Once the stone was off the lorry we swapped back to the bar to lift the monument upright and offer it up to the concrete pad.

Then I needed to line it up East/West and then where the holes needed to be were marked onto the concrete.

Obviously drilling the holes had to be done square to the base.

We then lowered the stone and checked for level before the final installation. The stone was levelled against the tower of the Church and then the final fix was done by raising the stone squeezing the glue into the holes and dropping the stone into place.

Once the stone was levelled and the dowels were cemented in, the lifting equipment could be removed and I could stand back and see just what I had acheived.

Finally a sand wall was built and cement was poured under and around the base of the memorial.

The new war memorial was then boxed up to keep it protected and hidden until the unveiling day. John Tandy who had started the campaign for a new war memorial many years ago arranged for his son who now runs the family business Beard and Tandy to erect a box around the memorial to keep it a surprise until the official unveiling.

My lifting expert Damon Bramley and his team were incredible and everything worked beautifully, their care and knowledge helped to take some of the stress out of this emotional project.

Thank you to my Partner Ed Francis for the amazing photographs, documenting this important project, the next post will feature photos from the unveiling.