Cat's Eye Carving

Compass Rose part 3.

Once I hade finished carving the stone, I put them all in position on the floor so that I could put all the compass points and coat of arms in their positions.

The minor points could be dowelled and glued in, but the other four and the coat of arms would have to wait as they are on the joints.

Before the brick pavers were cut and removed, we marked where North was in order to get it positioned correctly, and before the final piece was lowered in, they checked that it was still in position.

Justin’s team made the hole with minimum disruption to the rest of the bricks. Bedded on a cement mix, levelled and ready for me to set the remaining compass points and coat of arms in and then point in.

I used hydraulic lime, coarse and fine sand for around the granite setts and hydraulic lime and stone dust for the smaller internal joints. I sieved the stone that came from the carving so that it matched.

We had perfect weather for pointing with a lime mix and managed to complete the outer area to schedule.

On Saturday evening, I poured the resin into the coat of arms to level it and dusted the final layer with dry playpit sand to give a non-slip surface.

On Mothering Sunday, my Mum and I put the coat of arms in and I put the final coat of paint on the letters.

Finally on Monday, I cleaned the whole thing down and carved my Cat’s Eye, my stonemason’s mark into the stone.

John Van Der Dol, (pictured) the designer of this wonderful project came by to see how his vision had been realised, and he was very happy.

At the moment, it looks better wet as it needs to weather in and a few hundred people to walk across it.

I was very excited to feature on BBC News.

Sandwich compass stone to mark Cinque Port town’s naval history – BBC News