Cat's Eye Carving

Stonemason’s festival, Part two.

5 June, 2026 – 10:51 am

As well as the stonemasons carving and my activities on the Saturday and Sunday afternoon, there were other activities hosted by the Maison Dieu and partners, both inside and outside the building.

Cross Channel Geopark, https://geoparktransmanche.org/en/ had a stand where people could visit and find out more about a mega flood that carved out the English channel 450,000 years ago.

There was the opportunity to look closely at the stones of the Maison Dieu.

There were information boards inside that visitors could sit and read to find out more.

Keen to engage the local community and those from further afield all the activities are fully accessible, there is a lift from the entrance to all levels. When the new entrance to the Maison Dieu was installed at pavement level, a William Burges window had to be removed, two of the stonemasons were carving part of the original stone from this window.

Gayle and Candida both chose a piece of stone that had once been part of a window. Candida a local artist carved a charming image of St Martin and his horse and Gayle a 3rd year student from London carved a mysterious sea creature from one of the many beautiful stained glass windows featuring Sir William Peveril’s and his shield.

There was a fantastic activity to design your own stained glass by painting lasagne sheets, an activity that everyone can enjoy.

I have been commissioned by the Maison Dieu and Dover Museum to reproduce 4 replicas of the Deal Chalk figure. It was found in the 80’s at an archaeological dig on St Richard’s road in Deal,
this Iron Age figure is in need of some conservation and restoration.

Another engaging activity was to create small figures out of air drying clay inspired by the original, I had brought the one I am working on and the initial sketches that I had made for people to look at. There were photos, how-to guides, and obviously there were plenty of wonderful volunteers to assist.

Plasticine is another great modelling material and people were able to make their own grotesques inspired by the creatures of the Maison Dieu. William Burges loved the Wyvern and someone created a lovely one in clay.

There are still lots of photos to share of the stone carving and some more videos, so watch this space for the final installment of the stonemason’s festival.

Photos courtesy of Andy Aitchison, Martin Crowther and me.

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Stonemason’s festival. Part one.

30 May, 2026 – 4:17 pm

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.

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Acorn and cup.

20 May, 2026 – 3:02 pm

This was a lovely job and took me back to another one that I had previously carved, but on a much larger scale.

This one I carved way back in 2011 and it was a piece of Forest of Dean sandstone, 2ft x 12 x 12. there were two complete acorns with cups and a separate cup, that was hard work…I wore out a punch carving that set.

I was asked to carved a separate acorn and cup out of Cotswold limestone, Thankfully no chisels were harmed in the making of this one.

I set about carving the acorn, the piece of limestone was 10 x7 x 7 inches and had a lovely close texture.

I drew a circle on each end and proceeded to work a series of chamfers off, carving the the corners off the corners until the stone was cylindrical. I then shaped the top and bottom to round it off and make it acorn shaped. I have noticed since I have been back in Kent that they are longer that they are in the Forest of Dean.

I used a separate piece of limestone to carve the cup, by using the stone a certain way, I left enough to carve an integral stalk.

Once I had finished carving the detail on the surface of the cup, it was time to rinse off the loose dust with water and call my customer.

If you would like to discuss a carving for your home or garden, please feel free to get in touch, or pop in and see me in my shop in Sandwich.

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Repair to a statue.

15 May, 2026 – 2:40 pm

As you may know, I enjoy making things good again. This next commission was one that had to wait for some dry weather as I needed to work outside.

The statue is of Our Lady of St Thomas’ in Deal, she is made of plaster of Paris and painted, it’s had several coats of paint and there are areas of damage that need addressing.

She was missing fingers on one of her hands, there is a galvanised wire armature in the plaster and I needed to work with this, I couldn’t pull the wire too much, this would risk damaging the arm, I built her index finger over the wire and sculpted the rest of her digits.

I hope that they can find the money to restore the statue fully, it would be lovely to bring her back to her former glory.

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Deal Chalk man

7 May, 2026 – 9:17 am

I have been commissioned by Dover Museum to carve a replica of a small Iron age sculpture, he was found during an Archaeological dig in Deal, Kent, during the 1980’s.

Catherine, the Deal man’s keeper at Dover Museum.

I have some chalk that needs cutting to size, and once I have made to template, I can get to work.

I visited Dover Museum on Tuesday 5th May and made some templates to compliment the measurements that I have already taken.

I used a plastic square up against the outer points of the Deal man, this means that the template that I have will give me the overall shape at the extremities of the carving and I will finish off this carving with the original in order to get the finer details correct.

Interesting markings on the surface, I will work to get as close a match as possible, using tools that I think that they would have used.

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