Stonemasonry

The craft of stonemasonry (or stonecraft) has existed since humanity could use and make tools - creating buildings, structures, and sculpture using stone from the earth. These materials have been used to construct many of the long-lasting, ancient monuments, artifacts, cathedrals, and cities in a wide variety of cultures. Famous works of stonemasonry include the Taj Mahal, Cusco's Incan Wall, Easter Island's statues, the Egyptian Pyramids, Angkor Wat, Borobudur, Tihuanaco, Tenochtitlan, Persepolis, the Parthenon, Stonehenge, and Chartres Cathedral.

Definition

Masonry is the craft of shaping rough pieces of rock into accurate geometrical shapes, at times simple, but some of considerable complexity, and then arranging the resulting stones, often together with mortar, to form structures.

  • Quarrymen split veins, or sheets of rock, and extract the resulting blocks of stone from the ground.
  • Sawyers cut these rough blocks into cuboids, to required size with diamond-tipped saws. The resulting block if ordered for a specific component is known as sawn six sides (SSS).
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    York Council approves donation points along city walls

    BBC News 25 Mar 2025
    "The city walls are not only the glory of York, they're one of the glories of England ... Kilbane said the council had to employ specialist stone masons to help maintain the walls - a cost faced by only a few authorities ... .
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    Amber Le Bon details traumatic 40-hour labour that left her in 'shock' after revealing she's ...

    The Daily Mail 24 Mar 2025
    The brunette beauty look incredible as she attended the Stone & Mason AW24 collection dinner at Julies in Holland Park ... Amber debuted her baby bump in London in November at the Stone & Mason ...
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    Mystery donor pledges $10K for historic Fall River church repairs, but it needs your help

    The Herald News 20 Mar 2025
    The church has been undergoing substantial work to its tower, with masons repointing the stone along its base — water seeping in is running through the structure and causing damage.
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    Updating of local plans ‘an excellent opportunity to rethink urban planning’ – architect

    Independent Online 16 Mar 2025
    Asciak, one of the seven newly-appointed partners, said that one issue which has developed over the years is that the number of capable masons has decreased. "To find someone really skilled in traditional stone workmanship is hard.".
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    Scaffolding to be removed from Four Courts after almost two years

    RTE 14 Mar 2025
    Now we're at the stage where we need to take each capital out, have it inspected by the conservation architect, the engineer and an expert stone mason from Irish Natural Stone in Co Clare to see if it's structurally sound.
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    A Giant Underground Structure From Prehistory Lays Deep Under Malta: Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum

    IFL Science 12 Mar 2025
    ADVERTISEMENT ... Like all good discoveries, it was stumbled upon by accident. In 1902, a stone mason was laying the foundations for a set of houses, Heritage Malta notes, and inadvertently smashed through the Hypogeum's roof ... ADVERTISEMENT ... Image credit ... .
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    2025 WPIAL Class 5A baseball preseason breakdown

    Pittsburgh Tribune Review 11 Mar 2025
    Let the fun begin ... Preseason Top 5. 1 ... The pitching rotation will lean on senior Mason Gass, an Ohio University commit, and sophomore Brandon Boyce ... Mason Leonard, Sr., OF, Latrobe. Bradyn Stone, Sr., INF, Penn-Trafford ... Mason Gass, Sr., P, West Allegheny.
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    Is This Working? by Charlie Colenutt review – labours of love in unexpected places

    The Guardian 09 Mar 2025
    What he discovered is that there were people doing “good” jobs, sometimes performed with grace and beauty – the piano tuner, for example, the stone mason, the firefighter – but ...
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    Meet the Angus apprentice stonemason, 25, protecting Arbroath Abbey

    The Courier 06 Mar 2025
    Sarah Tebbs has worked on some of Scotland’s most important buildings, including the near 850-year-old Angus landmark ... .
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