Jonathan Morrison
The Stonemason by Andrew Ziminski review — dentists on a giant scale
Jonathan Morrison is fascinated by a stonemason’s guide to British architecture
Stumbling across the fields before dawn towards the distant sound of drumming, sending sleeping bustards careering into the darkness, the author comes across a bizarre stand-off: in the centre of Stonehenge “in a white gown and straw boater, a Druid, Rollo Maughfling, chief of the Glastonbury Order, held court for the benefit of the crowds, TV cameras and world peace”. His archrival, meanwhile, surrounded by a loyal warband passing around cigarettes, looks on from the edge of the stone circle with contempt: “King Arthur Pendragon . . . in his tin crown, white robe and hefting a broadsword.”
Architectural history can be dry, but The Stonemason is full of such arresting vignettes. Andrew Ziminski, a stonemason for 30 years who has seemingly worked on every significant restoration project going in the south of England in his time, takes us on a personal journey across the buildings of Britain. He describes a vertigo-inducing climb around the spire of Salisbury Cathedral, and recounts how he attempted to rescue a Georgian tomb from a tramps’ barbecue, only for him to succumb to their hospitality.
This is hands-on, practical fare, rooted in a deep understanding of geography and geology, as well as a craft that has changed relatively little over millennia (the occasional use of power tools exempted). Stonemasonry might, with the knapping of flints, even be our oldest skill. And out of such a bounty of knowledge and an insistent curiosity emerge some startling theories. Such as: what if the reason there isn’t more than one Stonehenge is due to silicosis, a fatal disease that could have been caused by inhaling the dust from carving and polishing, and which could have killed most of its builders?
Ziminski wants us to notice things in stone buildings, such as the influence of carpenters in the tongue-and-groove joints of the enormous lintels, or a graffiti mark that might have been left by Sir Christopher Wren. With a practised eye he assesses the engineering challenges of moving 30-tonne slabs. Back in his workshop he sets about shaping an iron-hard sarsen stone to see how our ancestors might have attempted it, and quickly decides it is one of the toughest jobs he has undertaken.
Part history, part travelogue, part biography, the book discusses Islamic influences on medieval gothic (in the use of “squinch” arches, especially), Roman attitudes to conquered tribes, and even prehistoric religious ceremonies. It is uncompromisingly learned, and art and architecture fans will delight in discussions of clerestories, voussoirs and mandorlas (a glossary is included); geologists will enjoy his talk of oolites, plesiosaurs and “silage-green” Chilmark rock.
Along the way there are moments of great lyricism in his descriptions of the landscape and fauna, and of humour too. For instance, he apes the Roman pilgrims at Bath by consigning a curse written on a lead sheet to the holy water: “I curse him who damaged my black van and stole my Barbour and best Nilfix Axe. Whether youth or man, crack smoker or otherwise. Goddess Sulis, inflict benefit withdrawal now, and further blackening of their teeth in the future.”
He has a winning way with rage too, lambasting the shoddy work of some unfortunate youth who had smeared mortar over the façade of the Royal Crescent Hotel in Bath, “as though a chimpanzee had been let loose with the lipstick on Audrey Hepburn’s face in the dark”. There are few things as cheering as fanatical perfectionism at a safe distance.
The book is not without flaws. It could certainly stand a few more images for those who do not know the region and buildings as well as he does, and readers will probably spend some time on Wikipedia looking for further explanation of places, myths and events as the narrative jumps between projects with alacrity. From the Neolithic to the Anglo-Saxon, the reformation to the Civil War and beyond, there are so many layers of history that the author can’t be overly blamed for this.
Probably the greatest regret is that you do not emerge feeling that you understand the craft of the stonemason that much better. The best description of what he does is “dentistry, but on a cathedral-sized scale” — replacing rotten stones with new ones. Perhaps something so physical simply doesn’t translate well to the page, but you sense that a lot more could have been revealed and explained.
Still, ranging across Wessex by canoe and pickup, Ziminski fills you afresh with an appetite to visit one of the most extraordinary regions in the world, containing such marvels as the stone circles at Avebury, the artificial, mysterious and once gleaming-white Silbury Hill of 2400BC — “the biggest single human endeavour undertaken in prehistoric Europe” — and West Kennet Long Barrow, built in 3650BC, a thousand years before the first Egyptian pyramid.
Most of us won’t be jetting off to foreign adventures in the next few weeks, so there has probably never been a better time to discover or rediscover this magical land.
∗ ∗ ∗