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00:00the UK has long been a world leader in heritage crafts from stained glass design to wood carving
00:20from silversmithing to wheel writing these skills have been kept alive by a dedicated few who've
00:28championed not only their historical significance but their enduring worth but with fewer students
00:35taking up these skills and a limited number of masters around to pass on their knowledge there's
00:40a risk that these crafts will be lost forever so in this series we've invited 12 dedicated junior
00:48crafters who are starting out on their crafting journeys hoping to specialize in blacksmithing
00:53mosaic making letterpress printing and one of the oldest crafts known to humankind stone carving
01:05each week they'll take part in a unique master class mentored by a world leader in their craft
01:13to help maintain the traditions of crafting excellence and help keep our heritage crafts
01:18alive this time our juniors have hammer and chisel in hand as they tap away under the masterful guidance
01:26of stone carver Simon Smith and this is holding the bike we just want to ride over their humps
01:33and bumps and just emphasize things and I also take eye-opening trips back in time through Britain's
01:38past witnessing how the masters of old created our rich cultural heritage so welcome to master crafters the
01:48next generation
01:49we've gathered our three junior crafters in cambridgeshire to take part in a unique masterclass intuitive stone carving
02:10student goke adegoke I'm feeling good nervous but excited at the same time newly qualified stonemason Emily Guest
02:19I'm just trying to keep a really open creative relaxed mind so that I can do my best and student of expressive stone carving
02:28Thomas Stainer I'm ready to go let's do it hello hello goke Emily Thomas welcome to master crafters today is all about expanding your skills exploring new ideas new techniques and the chap who's going to be taking your master class today is a real titan of the world of stone carving
02:55stone carving he's had work commissioned all around the UK he's got work in the V&A Westminster Abbey just a name but two so let's go and meet Simon Smith okay follow me
03:14Simon Smith is a stone carver with over 30 years experience based in southeast London he has created exquisite pieces for world famous landmarks
03:24I got into stone carving through working as a stonemason and I started as a stonemason when I was 16
03:37as a mason you're usually working to a straight line so you draw a pencil line on the stone and then work along the pencil line but when you're carving everything's within the stone and so whatever lines you draw on it once you start carving they just disappear
03:53so you have to picture it in your head one of the things I do really like about the craft is the longevity of the pieces it's almost like time travel your thoughts can travel through time and in hundreds of years someone will look at it and know what you were thinking the same as we look at work from hundreds of years ago and you can understand what the carvers thought
04:12I've always been intrigued by the world of stone so an invitation to Simon's workshop was something I couldn't pass on
04:19this is just actually a wood carving gouge but the stone's so soft you can use it on the stone so I'm running around the form with that Simon's working on a green man a figure from folklore that's often used as an architectural ornament so you have to kind of have a
04:40a real sense of it in your head as you're doing it yeah well I mean Michelangelo said you're revealing it from the block there's this way which is called holding the bites where you're just running over the form
04:55oh right I'll try a bit of that if you hold your left hand out flat yeah and open that yeah your palm it just lies there it's coming out of that part of your hand oh I see right so you'd sort of want to just run it over yeah
05:13although this is my first time working the stone my grandfather was a stonemason so you know maybe I got
05:23skills God look at that that's just I wasn't really applying much pressure there at all no and it's just the chisel was just sort of you know it's gliding
05:32gliding over it hmm it's very satisfying though I've got to say straight away how long have we got
05:38this tool is brilliant it's beautiful isn't it yeah it's great it's just like I feels like I'm just knocking it I feel like I'm giving it a stone haircut
05:52all right sir so there we go what do you think it's looking good yeah yeah yeah do you want a mirror actually
06:04that big one of Simon's favorite pieces of work is in an unusual place on the outside wall of a police
06:18station in Lewisham a short walk from his London studio it's a memorial to ask with Gibbs an important
06:27local community leader who died in 2013.
06:32Asquith's wife was very keen for it to be a figurative portrait of her husband yeah because she said if it's just his name
06:39people wouldn't know he was black and the day we fixed the memorial to the wall some kids walked past
06:45and looked up and went god it's our black man and they were so surprised to see a black man portrayed in
06:51in this traditional way yeah
07:01oh there it is it looks fantastic it's got a really nice mix of textures colors so it really does sort of
07:09you know leap out at you yeah the big stone at the back is slate yes and then he himself is carved out of
07:15Kilkenny limestone so it's all one piece of stone his face is just polished and that brings the color out right
07:21and then i've left the shirt and the jacket and the tie from the chisel and also wore glasses so what i've done
07:27is indicate the glasses and then i think your eye just joins up the bits where it's not there it does
07:32it's a very fitting tribute to somebody who is obviously a great man
07:46i've learned from so many people and so many people were kind enough to teach me what they knew
07:52and i think it's really important to to hand that on to new carvers
08:06back in our wonderful masterclass barn our three junior crafters are keen to absorb simon's knowledge
08:12and to find out what he's got in store for them
08:14your challenge today is to carve some ornament for a string course
08:18now a string course is a kind of cornice which occurs kind of halfway up a building usually at window head heights
08:26the ornament i'd like you to carve it can be anything you like it can be a beast or it could be flowers or a head
08:32and probably in a kind of gothic style because gothic is kind of lively and vigorous and fun
08:37so what about you is this something that you've done before
08:40if i can get something drawn then i think i can go for it in the stone with a bit of encouragement
08:46okay what about you well i would say starting from a drawing is a good idea
08:52yeah oh that's good so what about you tom is this something you've done before then
08:56i've done a little bit of kind of gothic carving
08:58i've never done a string course but um i think i could apply myself
09:02all right so and so any tips anything bits of advice you can offer them
09:06well i would as you were saying i would start with a drawing but nothing too detailed just a loose drawing to sketch something out and get some ideas
09:14but keep here big simple shapes and also bear in mind where it would be on the building
09:20you're going to be looking up at it so you don't see much fussy detail because you won't really see that
09:26so you're going to be direct carving into the stone which is a very kind of gothic way of doing it
09:30a lot freer and a lot more lively much more fun great i like the way you say it yes much more fun
09:38that means fun for us fun for us exactly yeah yeah that's it yeah no pressure yeah yeah yeah
09:44when you actually start carving get the big form in first map everything out and really sketch with the chisel
09:52because once you start cutting in the obviously you can't put the stone back
10:02simon has brought each junior a block of clipsham limestone for the challenge
10:06all right and me old friend the green man i remember this oh yeah yeah
10:12so this is a green man we've been working on this is a very gothic leaf form where it will be
10:18so these are going to be leaves i quite like the leaves coming out of his mouth and then maybe going
10:22over his face when you actually start carving sketch with the chisel and if you're putting a center line
10:27on or any line where you're just trying to get a nice flowing line you're best to use a gouge rather than
10:33a flat chisel because the corners of a flat chisel will dig in and they kind of create these marks you don't want
10:43so rather than sometimes you can use a chisel and you kind of go like that which is kind of something
10:49you're doing masonry when you do that you're forcing the chisel to be in one place whereas
10:54with this we just want to ride over the humps and bumps and just emphasize things and just let it
10:59ride through and let it do the work simon then explains how to use texture to add an extra dimension
11:06and if you've got chisel marks on it it creates facets because all we're trying to do all we can
11:14do with carving is use light the chisel marks create little shadows and they can almost sparkle bits of
11:21the surface will be hitting the light and bits will be shadow and it just gives it life and movement
11:26okay well this is the the green man uh a bit further along epic and things have things have
11:35been uncovered yeah so we're keeping it a bit raised on that molding yeah yeah keep it yeah sitting on top
11:42of the molding yeah simon also demonstrates undercutting a technique that emphasizes shapes by creating
11:49areas of shadow something like that so we'll start off with i'm just going to cut 90 degrees to the
11:55surface with this chisel i think let's see how we get on
12:02so with leaves it's tempting to make them paper thin because that's how they are in real life but
12:09it looks terrible in stone because it's got no strength so really you need to make them i don't know
12:16three or four mil thick and then we carve under here a bit more a bit more angle to trap a bit more shadow in
12:23there
12:30it's mesmerizing isn't it
12:36okay brilliant thank you simon that's wonderful um i hope it's given you some ideas now it's time
12:42to start your challenge so crafters to your benches
12:45our junior crafters will have just five hours to create their own stone carving
12:54none of them have ever worked at this level or this speed before
12:57this is going to be the trickiest part of the day is this this kind of apron all right i see i see i see
13:03yeah if you can't get the apron on then don't bother with the stone five hours later
13:18okay crafters this is the start of your five hour challenge so what i recommend you do is spend
13:32about 20 minutes on the design of your piece before you start roughing out okay so good luck
13:38before they get anywhere near carving the stone the first task is to get their ideas down on paper
13:47and create a sketch of their design remember the goal is to make an architectural ornament for a string
13:53course that's the decorative horizontal band on the outside of a building
13:58next the crafters have to transfer their drawings onto their blocks of clipsham limestone
14:10there we go then they start to chisel the stone to get the overall
14:15shape of their design a process known as roughing out
14:22all right emily hi how are you getting on all right yeah all right thanks we don't want to hold
14:26you up we just want to have a quick look at your design just had the idea of a kind of ram's head
14:33so at the moment i'm just trying to tilt the nose down keep the bulbous head that's great but then
14:41i've got to leave enough on the sides for these yeah yes for the big curly horns yeah
14:49i was always into crafts as soon as i could get my hands on play-doh or a bit of wood
14:56newly qualified stonemason emily is 41 and comes from nottingham show
15:03i grew up in a household where lots of things were made be it a rabbit hutch some steps or a wall
15:10my granddad was a draftsman and my mom's an upholsterer and a seamstress
15:14the thing about stone is you make things to last so there's a real perfectionism in it and there's
15:26just something really tactile about it when you're hitting stone with a hammer and chisel
15:31it just makes a really satisfying sound emily's been working on the restoration of the norman shore
15:40north building in westminster part of the parliamentary estate
15:43i work in heritage masonry which i think is quite creative we're working with old buildings and you're
15:51seeing how to sympathetically put repairs in when i'm working i'm often thinking about
15:59the masons that put this stone in originally because i can see their marks that's really cool i like that
16:07i will do this for another 10 years and still have so much to learn
16:20with your experience as a mason you can get rid of what you don't need quite quickly
16:24which then means then you can get onto the carving onto the onto the good stuff yeah all right it's just
16:29being bold isn't it yeah getting lots out it's brave yeah thomas we're just gonna come and have a quick
16:42look see how you're getting on so i'm uh yeah i think about trying to do a bumblebee and maybe do it
16:50contained within a sunflower if i've got time right okay if i've got quite ambitious then i like that
16:58giving myself scope 30 year old thomas from dorset studied stone masonry at college before finding his
17:06true passion when i was doing masonry we used to have end of year challenges where you do some carving
17:13and it was when i was doing the carving competitions that i kind of realized this is the part of the craft
17:17i love a relative late comer to the craft thomas began working with stone thanks to his grandfather
17:24i was about 23 and my grandpa saw i was at a loose end and so he kind of guided me towards
17:29trying a craft out and so i tried stone masonry started stone carving and yeah i kind of loved it
17:36i like stone because it's the most enduring material and it has history embedded in it
17:43it's been waiting a million a billion years to be carved so it will tell you what it wants to be
17:50carved into public pieces of art that's what i'd really love to do but all in stone because that's
17:58the material i love when i was on the prince's foundation we cut and constructed an obelisk
18:05we cut it up in dumfries and then shipped it down to dorset and constructed it there
18:10it's the piece i'm most proud of a photo of me shaking the king's hand and yeah it's a very proud
18:16moment to construct something a hundred yards away from where i learned masonry
18:24it's a nice idea i think keep this simple for now we can just do a circle leave an area at the top
18:29for the b and then sink down a little bit for that and that will help define the b yeah at the moment
18:34just around these corners off and use a punch a bit more because the the effort you're using to
18:43hit the chisel it's going to dissipate exactly yeah through there whereas a punch it's concentrated and
18:48you'll blast more off so you'll soon get through it and hold the hammer near the end and keep your elbows
18:53in and just like you've got big heavy hammer there aren't you yes yeah yeah cool all right good one
18:59okay carry on
19:09cocky how you getting on oh yeah getting there man it's good it's tiring so far is it yeah so what have you
19:15gone for in the end um so i've got a sort of rope design all right yep um and then there's like a
19:22face yeah that design seems to work better to me they're the bigger head just have the rope kind
19:28of disappearing behind the head and then yeah exactly exactly and then i think it'll be quicker
19:33and simpler and make more sense if anything i'm actually focusing more on the rope than the head
19:37yeah and because i want to get the sort of flowing of the rope more than yes the i guess the
19:42precision of the head yeah 29 year old goke from hackney in east london is a student stonemason
19:57of our three juniors goke has had the least formal training i first got interested in stone masonry
20:04when i was 18. i was having problems with a levels and decided to drop out and i entered a craft school
20:10to study stone masonry i didn't really have anyone in my family that was kind of in the crafts
20:17and as someone coming from an immigrant background i just didn't see it as a pathway that made sense
20:26having spent nearly 10 years pursuing other ways to make a living goke realized he couldn't escape
20:32the lure of stone
20:33i decided to come back because stone is sick there's just so much you can do
20:44i'm inspired by historical masons
20:49i think also like my surroundings
20:53there's a spot in island garden
20:55woman and fish that's a really powerful piece of british sculptural work
21:05and i just sit there and get inspired
21:08the moment we're just trying to get rid of what we don't want okay pretty quite brutal with it
21:27yeah yeah yeah yeah i'm going to cover it it's every firing line sorry anyway plenty of work to do
21:34thank you crack on brilliant
21:48tom's design looks good i mean it's quite an ambitious design in a way isn't it yeah
21:52definitely and i think the the b will be simplifying yeah i think it's starting well starting well
22:01i've chosen to do a bumblebee i think that might be because i've been reading all about
22:06dionysus recently who's a greek god that's all to do with honey and wine
22:13emily she's got the design done fairly quickly and got stuck in yeah so i think it's a really strong
22:18design and that obviously her experience as a mason is helping her to push her forward to remove
22:23all the stones to get down to the carving but she might struggle with that but we'll see
22:29if it comes out looking like a ram i'll say i've done a ram
22:32if it comes out looking like something else i'll just say it's like a gothic beast
22:39okay he's got this design of the rope and the head how do you think he's getting on
22:44he's obviously the the least experienced of the three and um i think if he's starting in the right
22:50way you're just going to keep brave with it and bash it all out and that will give you more time
22:54to work on the detail later it's getting there it's a a harder stone than what i've been cutting
23:01recently so it's quite physically taxing
23:04these are really interesting designs they're all quite ambitious in a way no i thought they'd be a
23:12bit safer it's very exciting it is
23:23in the uk the golden age of stone carving began with medieval churches
23:27to see for myself one of the finest examples i took a trip to wiltshire and the magnificent
23:35salisbury cathedral humans have been building with stone for thousands of years and the nature of
23:43the material means that these structures endure through the centuries but here in salisbury it's
23:50the sheer scale of it that makes it so impressive
23:58even though this place was built to last that was back in the 13th century so it's always required
24:03maintenance in charge of restoration is gary price gary hello bill nice to meet you good to meet you
24:13he's been working at the cathedral since he was just 17 years old
24:16in 38 years they completed the whole thing excluding the tower and spire which they added
24:25later that's incredible it's remarkable and i've been here for 38 years oh um restoring the whole
24:31cathedral so we've restored it in the time it took them to build it
24:38the giant structure was built from a mixture of chilmark limestone and polished purbeck marble
24:44and nothing has changed at all in the techniques and the way you work stone
24:52the chisels and the hammers we use now are almost identical to what the medieval masons use
24:58someone like yourself working it getting amongst it you see almost like the whole history of the place
25:04yeah in stone yeah
25:06you get that sense of awe don't you a sense of wonder when you walk in yeah and also i guess
25:15from your perspective and anyone who's a crafter just the sheer appreciation of the work that's gone
25:21in here it's amazing and after 38 years of being it that still doesn't change you're so privileged and
25:28thankful to be working on a place like this but even though gary and his team have completed the external
25:37works there's still a full-time team of stonemasons working on the upkeep elsewhere
25:42key to the restoration effort is head mason lee andrews and we're going down this way
25:56some of this though that we're replacing now is actually medieval stone so it's actually fallen
26:01apart so it's um it's it's had its life it's done pretty well yeah yeah yeah 800 years so yes but
26:07i'd love to have a look at what you're actually doing yeah of course so we're going to chop out
26:12a joint yeah just so then we can take a detail of this molding because as you can see some of the
26:18molding is worn away so you're going to have to kind of replicate these this sort of molding here
26:23so it carries on up here yeah okay so and it's just with a carbide saw just cut through the joint
26:31all right so it comes out quite yeah because it's because it's the lime water it's a lot softer
26:36it's not the cement so um yeah so the lime water comes out quite quite easily right okay
26:42do you want okay
26:46it's just going through there like i was going to say butter but it almost is isn't it i mean it's
26:50or a fine cheese how's that yeah that's fine and then we get a piece of plastic that we can then feed
26:57in lee's template for the precise curves of the handcraft stonework is surprisingly low tech
27:04and then we use a pen yeah and then you just go around and then you just
27:11do a few dots going all the way around it's fascinating the fact that all of this is handmade
27:19so when you come to repair it yeah the repairs all have to be drawn out by hand yeah every single stone
27:25is different yes you're just continuing yeah a kind of a tradition yeah yes we're just hopefully
27:32passing on the button to the next generation keeping the trade going the heritage skills that's why you
27:37love it yeah yeah back at the barn the juniors have been hard at it for two hours
27:55i would still take more off of here yeah it's really flat isn't it be brave
28:08getting there getting there oh that's good it's great
28:25yeah our junior crafters have been given five hours to hand carve an architectural ornament to
28:32their own design from a solid block of stone it's going well god it's looking really good
28:37thomas is carving a bee i think yeah move on to the head now emily's chosen a ram's head
28:43just sketch it in and feed it around into that and goke has chosen a rope
28:52okay crafters we are now halfway through
28:58everyone's got things mapped out but now they've got to decide this is the wing this is the horn
29:03yeah this is the edge of the rope thomas and his bee and the sunflower how's that coming together
29:10well i think we've dropped the sunflower a bit but it's working much better three-dimension
29:16he's simplified it and made it structurally more interesting yeah what about emily's ram's head how's
29:23that doing yeah it's going very well the horn is is a really tricky thing to pull off yeah and it's all
29:29tantalizingly close and goke how's he doing he's decided not to do a face in the middle of it right
29:36because i think we're running out of time yes but you can now follow the rope round you can see the
29:41beginning and follow it around to the end and how it touches under the other end which is great
29:50they're really in a zone they're really kind of concentrating
29:52i keep wanting to advise and i think oh i don't want to don't sort of break the spell exactly yeah
30:08four weeks ago to broaden our junior skills even further
30:12we sent them to experience a completely different type of stone carving
30:16and works from a studio near marlborough in wiltshire i think it is really important to pass on crafts
30:30especially something like this old british craft there aren't many countries where they actually do
30:35letter carving like we do and if we don't pass it on it'll get lost
30:41it'll get lost
30:43lisey's been working in this highly specialized craft for 14 years
30:50today our junior crafters will try their hand at carving their own designs
30:57i'm really excited to learn from someone that's so experienced in and fluent in this
31:03so today you're going to have a go at letter carving in slate what i'd like you to do is have a think
31:15of a word which describes you and then we're going to have some fun with it
31:22what have you chosen and why so i've gone with inquisitive because if you follow the curiosity inside
31:29yourself it's amazing where you end up i love the word inquisitive and i think it's really really
31:36important to always be inquisitive in your life in your craft thank you
31:44i've chosen the word lyrical because i love my poetry the word begins and ends with l if i can find
31:51a way to bring those two into some sort of cohesion yeah that's that's my idea and maybe to try and have
31:57every letter linked to the next one like the idea of the design reflecting the word so that's really nice
32:07goke's chosen a shortened version of the verb juicing
32:12for me that word represents a sort of unapologetic self-expression what is this
32:18this bit here this is supposed to be two eyes okay and then the top is joined so it almost looks
32:28like a roman two yeah and then i thought actually that's kind of looking like a juice carton so i
32:33just finished it off with the straw the idea today is to have some fun and see how far you can push
32:40letters so yeah i think that would be quite a good one once the designs are transferred to the stone
32:48it's time to get cracking or preferably not the secret to letter carving on slate is to take it easy
32:56slate is my favorite material but it's the least forgiving so therefore a tiny scratch on slate you will see
33:05have fun happy tapping
33:19letter carving is like calligraphy but on stone it takes great care and precision and it's all new to
33:26our junior crafters
33:27the students will definitely have a challenge they have very little time to learn a very complicated
33:36craft
33:39you have to think about the angle of the chisel if you're too shallow it'll slip and you'll have a big
33:47scratch
33:52rest your hand on the stone so that you have more control
33:57and stand square onto the piece and relaxed
34:04still got a bit to go but uh it's coming out you've got some very challenging fine lines so
34:09good luck with that thanks
34:14four hours fly by
34:18okay guys i think it's unfortunately time up
34:22now to assess what our crafters have produced
34:30your carving technique you know you're really getting there i'm really really impressed because
34:35it is so not easy to work in slate yeah it's uh it's a treacherous material that snitches on you
34:43whenever you make a mistake yeah it doesn't today was great fun i really enjoyed exploring a new skill
34:51and learning from a master like lissy yeah it was something i'd like to do again
34:57this is fantastic i really really liked the overall design it is very very impressive to see somebody
35:04who has never worked with slate to do such a fantastic job with it so well done thank you
35:11couldn't tinker as much as i would have wanted to but yeah i'm pleased with it
35:15the overall piece has a really lyrical kind of feel having met you for today that is a really nice
35:26reflection of who you are it's great it went really well lots of fun challenging and i learned a lot
35:34yeah it was really good back in the barn and over three hours into the challenge the juniors stone carvings
35:54have really moved on so how's it going tom finding the wings a bit tricky i like the way you've changed
36:02it so it's it's kind of clinging on to the molding but we are getting to the point now we think we
36:07have to decide when i say we i mean you have to decide um on where things going to be and commit
36:13yourself to them which you're doing oh that's looking good emily thank you you've got a very coarse
36:28claw haven't you yeah yeah i've got a slightly less course it might be start working right i'm sure
36:38we'll find it yeah yeah ah yeah i'd start using this one yeah because i think this it's beginning
36:44to look a bit rough we need to start getting there with a flatter chisel and defining things yeah i'm
36:50looking forward to seeing the end product okay crafters you have one hour to go so think about
36:58moving on to the fine detail everything i've roughed out hopefully will start to make sense
37:08getting there a lot of uh pain and suffering i will get as close to finish as possible this is when it
37:16gets really addictive you're seeing it now and you just want to keep going try and get me out of
37:22here later just try stone has always been the material of choice for any building designed to impress
37:39the medieval stone carvers who built salisbury cathedral created a landmark that's lasted for
37:45centuries from every road coming into salisbury you can see the spire gary price has overseen four
37:53decades of restoration work when the cathedral was finished in 1258 it didn't have a spire all right
38:00the top of the tower finished just on the roof line of the lead roof right it was like that for 50
38:05years and then they decided to add another six and a half thousand tons to the structure roughly 15 years
38:13it took to add all the extra weight and now that is the tallest medieval structure in the country
38:19and the view from up there is incredible should we go and have a let's do it lead on
38:25so look at that now we're 27 meters above the ground so we know we're near the spire yet we're not even
38:39halfway so how many steps are there in total gary uh 332 from the ground right and we've got about
38:51another 130 steps to go and over the years some of the craftspeople that worked here have left their own
38:58personal mark i mean i've got to say that is some of the neatest graffiti i've ever seen yeah if you
39:06look at the skill involved in carving their name yeah francis you know you've got the serifs and
39:11everything so he or she was probably a stonemason right the earliest graffiti that i've found is the
39:16one right there which says 1496. you know i don't encourage it but i think it's great that a craftsperson
39:23has left their mark on the building because some of these people worked here for the whole of their
39:28working life you know so it's kind of a monument to them really all right it's got a lot narrower
39:38hasn't it so yes so this is the narrowest staircase that we've got on the cathedral oh there we go
39:45we're getting closer to the bells yeah home stretch now literally the last 10 steps
40:01so this is called a windlass the windlass is a giant winch that allowed the old masons to build
40:07this place without modern machinery looks like a big hamster wheel to me the rope would go all the
40:13way down to the ground some 67 meters and the craftspeople would get inside there and walk
40:19around and they would hoist up up to one ton from the ground up to here it's a real sort of testament
40:26to their ingenuity that they managed to figure this out yeah come and look at the view out here
40:34it's quite humbling yeah part of a long line of craftspeople now it's in the best state since it
40:53was built and what we've done can last for another 800 years
41:06was the climb up here worth it oh yeah
41:18from 13th century salisbury we crossed the country back to cambridgeshire and our 13th century barn
41:27where the three junior crafters are in the final stages of a master class in stone carving
41:34under the guidance of leading practitioner of the art simon smith
41:38it's amazing steely determination i know absolutely yeah completely focusing it's fantastic
41:47they were given just five hours to create their own design from scratch
41:52okay crafters you have 10 minutes left
42:09okay crafters that's it time's up chisels down step away from the bench
42:16yeah well done you worked so hard well done guys wow what an effort i mean you're a completely
42:24immersed stairway so we thought we were going to have to wrestle the chisels out of your hands
42:29yeah might still have to yeah still time our junior crafters had to carve a block of stone into their own
42:40design roughing out the shapes and then adding details and texture drawing on the new techniques
42:46they've learned to create a finished work
42:53thomas how do you feel about it yeah i'm pretty proud of it actually i i was amazed i got to get
42:58the form in and even start to do detail in about five hours so yeah pretty proud yeah
43:04salmon what do you reckon i like the way he the bees kind of clinging on to the molding you've
43:08done all the things we were talking about did a quick sketch and then got stuck into it and i
43:12like the way you've put the molding in so you've got that contrast between the kind of straight lines
43:18of the molding and the more organic shapes of the bee i think it's worked really well no this is
43:22absolutely brilliant i mean i love this sort of detail here on the wings great piece of work well done
43:28cheers welcome yeah
43:30so gokka how do you feel about it i had rope and a face yes and then i just stuck to the rope
43:42and as i was trying to kind of carve out the rope i realized that there was a lot to do
43:46i do like the the the emptiness in the middle do you want to tip it back a bit just so we can see
43:52that yeah and the way the rope crosses over itself in this area right i think is really good it's been
43:59a bit of a journey of discovery hasn't it with this piece and i actually think what you've ended up with
44:05is a simpler design but it's more powerful so well done amazing well thank you
44:12you must be exhausted yeah i am a bit yeah uh simon what do you reckon you got into it and you took
44:22lots of stone off to begin with which is really important but then also you've got these horns
44:27and twisting around and i think you've done them beautifully is there any way could we could just
44:31tilt it back some so in fact emily you go around this side you see that's great you've got the curve
44:36of the horns here you've got lots of detail and this bit at the top that's kind of been left
44:42from the chisel that looks looks kind of woolly yeah great piece of work thank you can i put it
44:48down now yes you can actually i've learned so much from people in my lifetime and it's really important
44:59to pass that on to the next generation i think today went really well and i was really proud of what they
45:06produced learning from simon was really helpful i think what you learn from a mastercrafter is although
45:14they teach you a lot verbally it's what they show you it is important that mastercrafters pass on the
45:21knowledge of knowledge to people like me i need to learn
45:27it's such a privilege to learn a skill like this it's fulfilled my life
45:35i found it a real challenge but i learned so much
45:51so
45:57so
46:03so
46:05Transcription by CastingWords