We put buildings back
the way they were built.
Stonemasons and lime specialists since 1968. We cut stone in our own yard, match the bed and the bond to what is already there, and leave the repair legible rather than pretending it never happened.
Sheet 01 · the practice
Four trades, one yard
Everything that touches the building is ours. Nothing is subcontracted, because a repair is only as good as the person who cut the stone understanding the wall it is going into.
Sheet 03 · Brunswick Place
The one you cannot pick out.
Number 14 was rebuilt from the cill band up after a fire, in stone from the quarry the terrace was built from, laid to the original coursing. On the drawing it is marked in red because that is the convention. On the street it is marked by nothing at all, which is the point.
1968
founded
three generations, same yard
412
buildings
of which 214 are listed
6
banker masons
plus two carvers and an apprentice
0
cement mortars
used on historic fabric since 1981
Sheet 11 · cornice section 1:5
A repair begins as a drawing.
Every profile is taken off the building in lead tape and drawn full size before a block is ordered. The drawing is what the mason works from at the banker, and it is what the client gets at the end - not a photograph of scaffolding.
Where we have had to invent, the drawing says so. A conservation practice that cannot show you which parts it guessed at is telling you it guessed everywhere.
Three rules, and we have never broken them
Like for like, or say so
The same stone, the same bed, the same bond. Where the quarry is worked out we find the nearest match and we put the substitution in writing.
The mortar is softer than the stone
Always. A joint is meant to fail before the block does, which is the whole argument against cement - it is harder than what it is protecting.
Repair before replace
A weathered stone that is still doing its job stays. We have talked more clients out of full replacement than into it, and the building is the better for it.
Sheet 01 · the yard
Everything is cut here.
Two hundred tonnes of Bath, Portland and York under cover, a gantry that will lift three tonnes, and six benches that have been in the same positions since the shop was built. Clients are welcome in it, and most come twice.
Send us a photograph and a postcode.
We will tell you what we think it is, what it will take, and whether you need us at all. Three of the last ten enquiries did not.
Metro Stonewright
Stonemasons and lime specialists. Founded 1968. Six banker masons, two carvers, one yard, and no subcontracted stone.
METRO STONEWRIGHT LTD · THE YARD, BRUNSWICK PLACE · ALL WORK TO BS 7913 AND THE SPAB APPROACH