Cat's Eye Carving

Stonemason’s festival. Part one.

Back in 2008, I organised and ran my first stonemason’s festival, 18 years later I am celebrating the success of my 8th festival with my co-organiser Martin Crowther of the Maison Dieu in Dover.

4 years ago, I met Martin, the engagement officer of the Historic Maison Dieu (the town hall) in Dover, he took an interest in a carving that I had started at the first event that I took part in at the Sandwich Medieval centre and asked me to get in touch the following year. He thought that I could bring a stonemason’s perspective to his community engagement projects and the future of the Maison Dieu.

The Maison Dieu has a fabulous, rich and colourful history. In 2025, after a long conservation and restoration project, it re-opened and I am proud to say that I have been working with Martin and Katy (his no.2) for the last 3 years, as an ambassador and stonemason in residence. I have carried out numerous outreach projects and carved a 2/3rds scale replica of one of the magnificent beasties in the stone hall and a plaque for taking rubbings from, featuring William Burges’ favoured Wyvern and the beautiful font.

After several months of preparation and discussions, we were excited to host 8 stonemasons, two from Paris, and the others from around the UK. They all arrived on Friday 22nd, then on Saturday 23rd May, after a briefing and meet and greet, we got the equipment set up and begun the carvings that were to be completed on Monday 25th May.

My brief was slightly different as I was giving people, both young and old the opportunity to try their hand at stone carving, it’s not a class and I don’t pretend to teach stonemasonry in these sessions. It’s a chance to try the tools and see what it’s like. I started running these sessions back in 2008 at my very first festival when I was based at a craft centre in the heart of the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire.

Photos by Andy Aitchison.

Because I was only able to spend the mornings on my carving, we decided that my carving would be continued at other events, I am carrying on with it at Le weekend 13th/14th June, at the quay in Sandwich, with the Sandwich Medieval centre. Then finishing it off at the Canterbury Medieval festival on the 4th July. The subject, inspired by the dog chasing it’s tail, from an 11th C carving found in Canterbury in the 80’s. It is attributed to St Augustine’s Abbey, this motif can be seen on the borders of the Bayeux tapestry, offering evidence that this was embroidered by the highly skilled Canterbury embroiderers.

Each stonemason was inspired by images of the creatures in the carvings, paintings and stained glass of the Maison Dieu, they could design something new or carve from a single image. Martin and I measured pieces of stone that came from the Maison Dieu’s restoration project, and I sent the participants drawings and dimensions so that they could choose their piece of recycled stone.

No two pieces of stone were the same and this made it more difficult as they had to come up with a design that would work in the shape of the stone.

Jess chose a beautiful piece of Bath stone that was curved and had a lovely moulding through it, this lent itself to a frieze, and she designed a lovely pattern inspired by the Choughs in a stained glass and the foliage from the ceiling of the Connaught hall. The Choughs have only recently returned to Dover after thought to be extinct, so this was a particularly important carving.

I have so many photos that I will continue to write about this in several more posts.

Thanks to Martin Crowther and Andy Aitchison for the photos, some are mine too.