A job of work written in stone

ANT-LIKE shoppers hurry below on Stonegate, to the right, the Wheel of York dominates the skyline and although it’s 20 miles away, the billowing steam from Eggborough power station is as clear as a bell. Come to mention it the White Horse is also looking particularly splendid on this warm August day.

The views from York Minster may be tempting, but Harriet Pace has other things to do. She’s at work 200 feet above the ground and there’s tracery in the Great East Window to repair, some buttresses to replace and a bit of pointing to be done.

Harriet is a stonemason apprentice, now in her third year, and she’s one of the people you can often see hard at work in the mason’s lodge just in front of all the scaffolding.

After university, Harriet took a part time job in the Minster shop, then one day she heard about a mason apprenticeship.

“I had studied product design and wanted to get hands on, to make things, but I didn’t know what that might be,” she says. “When I helped on a shop stall during an open day, someone told me a girl was starting as a stonemason and I thought oh. I’ll have a look into this.”

Harriet wasn’t lucky the first time round, but eight months of perseverance later she was finally accepted for her dream job.

“My dad was a sculptor and artist and I did a bit of carving with Geoff Butler, the head carver here. I really enjoyed having a mallet and chisel in my hand.

“I’m really enjoying it. Hard graft, but I’ve developed a few muscles now.”

She’s quicker too and what once took months to make now takes weeks.

“It’s crazy thinking something I made will be in the Minster hundreds of years after I’ve gone. I’ve never created history before, so that’s kind of cool, isn’t it?

“People keep coming up and saying how proud they are of what we are doing. That’s nice.”

Harriet is one of four apprentice masons at the Minster alongside 15 master masons and eight carvers in one of the world’s finest stoneyards, where the work that continues has barely changed since the Minster was built eight centuries ago.

The master mason still measures the stones and then produces templates the original masons would still recognize. Except now they are to repair the ravages of the centuries.

The biggest project is York Minster Revealed, where the East Front and Great East Window are being restored thanks to a £10.5 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Sixteen miles of scaffolding has obscured the view since 2004 and will remain in place until the project is complete in four years. But last week a tantalising glimpse of what to expect came as some of the scaffolding was removed to reveal gleaming new stonework, a startling example of what the Minster would have looked like when first built.

The ornate hand-carved stonework includes voussoir stones around the South Porch entrance, grotesques and intricate stonework on the South East turrets.

On Friday the Minster Stoneyard will host its annual open day and you can meet some of the masons who made them.

People such as Victoria Darley, from Easingwold, another apprentice who is working on tracery stones for the Great East Window.

“It’s so nice that the craft has continued after all these centuries,” says Victoria. “You hear people saying they don’t build things like they used to, but we do here and possibly better.”

Victoria used to work in an office producing masses of paperwork each day. Most of it was quickly forgotten about and she was looking for something else, something hands- on and to do with old buildings.

Now Victoria forms intricate designs in limestone to produce pieces that will be remembered for many years to come.

“When an apprenticeship came up at the Minster it really fitted the bill,” she says. “Having a craft gives you a sense of purpose and that’s a great feeling. You never feel like you’re wasting your day.”

York Minster, like so many medieval cathedrals, was built by craftsmen who journeyed around Europe. The English word journeyman still describes a stage in training between apprentice and master, but no longer do they have to travel.

That’s not the case in Germany, though: Malte Simon isn’t allowed within 50km of his home town for three years and one day. In a rite of passage he must travel the continent armed with only a few personal possessions, all the time looking for work to broaden his experience.

Malte’s journeyman costume makes him instantly recognised in Germany and that makes getting lifts easier and some people offer food and lodgings in exchange for work.

“The tradition is more than 800 years old you have to travel and work, learn different cultures and work techniques both old and new,” says Malte.

So far he’s been to Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Italy, Denmark and Thailand and for two month’s York has been Malte’s temporary home.

“The Minster is absolutely the best building I have worked on. It is renowned for good quality and most travelling stonemasons want to come here.”

Malte is coming to the end of his three years and a day. Perhaps most surprising at a time of record youth unemployment, he says each of them has been productive. So what’s the secret?

“Go and ask. In Germany it’s quite easy but it works all over the world. You can always find a job and if a firm doesn’t have any they will send you to another one that does.

“As a journeyman you are absolutely free, there’s no one telling you what to do.”

• York Minster Stoneyard will host its annual open day on Friday between 9.30am and 3pm. You can meet expert craftspeople and apprentices in the workshops as well as enjoy family hands-on activity in the Minster. East Front Scaffolding tours will allow visitors to see behind-the-scenes areas of the restoration work.

• To book tickets visit yorkminster.org/whats-on