Touching History: The Ancient Craft Of Stonemasonry With Andrew Ziminski

What is it like to work on ancient English churches, cathedrals and stone monuments? How does stone, a symbol of permanence, change over centuries? In this interview, I explore the craft of stonemasonry with church conservator Andrew Ziminski. Andrew Ziminski is a stonemason and church conservator with decades of experience working on some of the greatest cathedrals and churches in Britain. He’s also the author of The Stonemason: A History of Building Britain and Church Going: A Stone Mason’s Guide to the Churches of the British Isles. * The ancient craft of stonemasonry and how the tools have remained unchanged for millennia * How stone is damaged over time by settlement, weather, and even the metal used to build with * The defining features of Gothic architecture, a movement focused on light and colour, not darkness * Why the “Green Man” carvings in churches are Christian symbols of resurrection, not pagan figures * How ancient churches can feel imbued with the atmosphere of centuries of human experience You can find Andrew at MinervaConservation.com. You can find my articles and photos of Gothic Cathedrals here. Transcript of the interview Jo: Hello Travelers. I’m Jo Frances Penn, and today I’m here with Andrew Ziminski. Hi Andy. Andy: Hello, Jo. Jo: Yes, absolutely. So just a little introduction. Andrew is a stonemason and church conservator with decades of experience working on some of the greatest cathedrals and churches in Britain. He’s also the author of The Stonemason: A History of Building Britain and Church Going: A Stone Mason’s Guide to the Churches of the British Isles. I’m a fan and I have the books right here if you are watching the video. I love them. So thank you so much for coming on today, Andy, I want to get straight into it because — Part of why I love churches and cathedrals is this sense of timelessness, of being small against the backdrop of history. How does it feel for you when you are working on these ancient buildings, doing this ancient craft? Andy: Well, in theory, I should be getting bored of it, I mean, I’ve been doing it so long, but anything but. My interest seems to grow with every project that we work on. We pretty much only work on ancient churches, medieval bridges, and the odd castle every now and again. There’s always something new to discover, be it a particularly local school of carvers or a type of medieval graffiti that I see carved into the piers of a particular church. There are so many regional variations in the British Isles, in terms of architecture and materials and the approach of the people who built these places, that I’m always sniffing them out. And as I understand more, it makes me want to understand even more, if that doesn’t sound too crazy. I think the day I’ll stop nosing around these places will be my last one on the planet. Jo: Well hopefully not falling off some spire. Didn’t you work on Salisbury Spire? Andy: Yeah, I started my training at Salisbury. I went to a local stonemasonry college because our part of England, the Southwest, is renowned for its building stones. There used to be a very excellent stonemasonry college at Weymouth on the coast in Dorset. From there I went up to the top of the tower, not the spire, but the tower, which is the square section that supports the octagonal base of the spire  which is 404 feet tall and the tallest medieval structure in...